Top 4 benefits of micro-learning for students and educational institutions

Top 4 benefits of micro learning
Top 4 benefits of micro learning (1)

Little things count; they matter and are a beginning if a big change. Thus we should never underestimate the power and capacity of little things and actions.

The above mentioned philosophy is the base of micro-learning. Teaching only small units of lessons or syllabus at a time to the students is called as micro-learning. The students are taught only a small sections of content which they can learn at their convenience.

Usually a small exam is conducted after teaching so as to test the understanding and knowledge acquired by the students by studying that part of syllabus. Once the test is successfully passed, that section of content is never taught or included for any of the future exams.

In recent times, this sort of bite-sized learning is gaining popularity in the education sector especially since the education shifted to the online mode. The micro-learning methodology also did not let down the education authorities.

The benefits acquired after adopting micro-learning were distinctly visible to the education sector making micro-learning a hit among the students and parents. So let us now have a look at the advantages and disadvantages of micro-learning.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of micro-learning?

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Advantages of micro-learning are as listed below:

• Improves understanding and retention capacity

In the traditional way of education, the syllabus was taught in two terms. In the first term, half of the syllabus was taught and tested. But for the second term, rest of the syllabus was taught but the entire syllabus was considered during exams.

Such kind of education burdens the students with studies. They are not able to study the entire syllabus before the exam which causes stress and anxiety among them. To avoid this, micro-learning incorporates teaching small portions of the syllabus at a time and test the students based on that syllabus.

This helps the students to study smaller portions of syllabus which further helps them to focus better, understand it and retain it for longer time.

• Eliminates restriction of time and place

The teachers can curate the content for micro-learning purpose and record it. This content can be shared with the students so that they can access it as per their convenience.

Thus, micro-learning can be pursued from anywhere and any number of times provided there is an availability of internet and an internet based device. The students need not depend on the lectures which are provided only once in the entire year.

They can revisit these recordings multiple times until they gain confidence about the knowledge they received from it.  

• Supports collaborative learning

Micro-learning involves group discussions and interactions. The students are encouraged to work with their peers as a part of the assignments given to them.

Micro-learning, thus, provides students with a platform to communicate with each other, express their thoughts and share their views related to various subjects.

• Facilitates faster learning with reduced costs and time

The traditional way of education involves huge costs to be invested on infrastructure and faculty. It involves expenditure to carry out administrative tasks as well.

Micro-learning helps to reduce these costs as it relies on recordings and online learning to a greater extent. It saves all the expenses related to the infrastructure, staff and administration.

The faculty members need to curate or teach short content for every unit. Hence, the teaching process requires much lesser time. This also affects the administrative activities which follow immediately after the exams are conducted.

The faculty members require lesser time to evaluate answer sheets and generate results. Hence, the overall time and costs spent on micro-learning is much lesser as compared to traditional education.

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Micro-learning is indeed very helpful for the students as well as the educational stakeholders. But we cannot overlook the disadvantages. The disadvantages of micro-learning are as below:

• Not suitable for teaching complex concepts

Some of the concepts in the syllabus are complicated and require elaborate explanation to be understood clearly. As micro-learning deals which bite-sized learning, it might be difficult to explain the entire concept in brief.

This might lead to confusions or incorrect information being conveyed to the students. Thus, micro-learning might not be a good option in case of complex or elaborate concepts.

• The syllabus fragments might seem disconnected

As we are now aware, the syllabus is taught in small fragments in micro-learning.  There is a limit to the amount of syllabus which can be included in one fragment.

This means that a long concept might have to be cut off in between before its completion which would lead to disconnection and confusion in the students’ minds.

• Involves lot of manual efforts

Clearly, micro-learning involves the participation of the teachers much more than the traditional education. Also content creation is time consuming as it requires planning, recording, editing, etc.

The teachers would be much busier as they need to create many contents throughout the year. Similarly, more efforts will be required for the teachers to put in for teaching this content, preparing exams, conducting and then evaluating them.

In what ways can educational institutes benefit from micro-learning?

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The schools and colleges have been following the pattern of education delivery in which there was no proper division of syllabus. This syllabus was taught to every student in the same way without much considering their power to grasp large amount of knowledge.

Sometimes, the students also might get burdened due to the amount of syllabus which they need to study for passing the exams. This could overwhelm them and the fear of missing out some important concept might cause anxiety. The burden of studies might also cause stress.

Some of the students can also have short span for concentration. Such students do find it difficult to cope up with large amount of studies during the final exam.

 Micro-learning is one of the best solutions to address these issues. By including smaller courses or sections of syllabus in one unit, micro-learning really helps the students to concentrate better and assimilate more knowledge.

Due to the lesser amount of syllabus they do not get stressed and thus can perform better in the exams. This also helps to increase the capacity to retain the knowledge for longer durations by filling the knowledge gaps.

The method of micro-learning was invented so as to make online education easier. Just as online education helps in eliminating the need of infrastructure and tedious administrative activities, micro-learning also provides similar benefits.

Micro-learning helps the educational institutions to save investments and also helps the parents to the save some part of their money spent on education and travelling.

Thus, micro-learning is one of the best methods of learning which any school or college can incorporate as it benefits the students, parents and educational institutions as well.

Final Thoughts

Micro-learning also stresses on conducting tests after each unit is taught to the students. These exams which are to be conducted like a test series after a stipulated time period can be conducted in an online mode.

Just like micro-learning can be done from anywhere at any time, these online exams must also be conducted in a way that the students will be able to give them from their preferred location.

Eklavvya is an award winning platform for conducting online exams which are not only technologically advanced but also extremely secure and free from any errors. Eklavvya’s highly advanced mechanisms make it impossible for the students to copy but make it very easy for the teachers to evaluate these online exams.  

Eklavvya has been adopted by many educational institutions all over the world and any of the online exams conducted by them have never failed. Thus, Eklavvya is reliable and also value for money.

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