Adapting both teaching and learning styles to suit the modern world is the need of the hour. How to enhance effective learning amongst students? Micro-learning or bite-sized learning lends a helping hand to improve the attention span in students along with immense academic benefits.
Learners can then make their own connections between single modules and choose to revisit them in any order they wish. Instead of being presented with long, complex lectures in which the teacher makes the connections for them, microlearning helps students connect one topic to the other. The major disadvantage of a long learning session is that students find it difficult to understand the concept.
Bite-sized learning is a technique where students receive information in small and manageable chunks. Microlearning restricts the length of the learning modules from 1 to 15 minutes. CBSE affiliated schools in Chennai Babaji Vidhyashram School create these module like a video or podcast, making it suitable for online sessions. Bite-sized learning is gaining importance in recent times, and let us learn why.
Benefits of Bite-sized Learning
Bite-size learning not only improves the attention span of the students, but has other advantages too. Learners remember information easily in small and consumable chunks. Bite-sized learning helps students go through the study materials at their own pace. Micro-content encourages learners to apply the acquired information and put it into practice. The other reasons to consider adopting bite-size learning techniques are:
- It consumes less time. Students can squeeze learning amidst their busy schedules with short sessions.
- Bite-sized nuggets are always better than large modules as they offer a meaningful and convenient study period.
- Bite-sized modules are easier to combine and consume. A student can go from one bite-sized nugget to the other in any order depending on their needs and preference.
- Short sessions are ideal for learning on any device. Thus, it suits the modern learning method with the latest technologies. It is highly engaging, making it more adaptable on all screens like desktops, mobiles and tablets.
- Bite-sized learning modules are easily accessible and help students learn the contents without hassle.
- Mobile learning is becoming common. Bite-sized learning helps students to learn while travelling easily with their gadgets.
- A bite-sized nugget makes even a difficult subject easily understandable to students.
- Bite-sized learning is effective for e-learning. By incorporating recaps into them, teachers can identify the learner’s weaknesses and strengths.
- It supports long-term memory retention better than continuous study periods.
Tips to Create Effective Bite-sized Learning Materials
Bite-sized learning must focus on one subject at a time. Teachers have to analyse the requirements of the students and stick with a single concept. They have to focus more on the key takeaways which the learner needs to know. Teachers can determine the most vital information and concentrate more on it while developing the micro-content. The objective must be clear and crisp to prevent the student from getting bogged with unnecessary information.
Bite-sized learning must provide students with the knowledge that they need the most. Teachers can develop bite-sized learning materials with tasks to stimulate the learners. They can make it more engaging for students by including presentations with games. Another important aspect a teacher must address is determining the students’ performance gap. They have to create the micro-content accordingly by fulfilling the student’s needs.
Teachers must link bite-sized learning with other content and supporting learning materials. Students will be able to gain a full-scale learning experience with such access. Teachers have to allow students to look into the longer-form of content to help them expand their knowledge. The other micro-learning formats must be available as supplements to students so that they can opt for any learning style and engage themselves throughout. By doing so, students will be able to dig deep into concepts instead of learning superficially.
If the subject is vast, it will be difficult for students to track many bite-sized modules. Creating a learning roadmap is a good idea to enable learners to organise and progress easily. Students will have the freedom to choose between modules in a bite-sized learning roadmap and work through them at their own pace. Teachers can also develop a personalised bite-sized learning roadmap for every student as it will provide better outcomes.
Closure
Short modules are the best ways to learn anywhere and anytime. Students prefer smaller sessions focusing on the main points of the content to imbibe knowledge effortlessly. It suits learning even on the go as bite-sized learning adapts to any device. Bite-sized learning helps the human brain increase understanding with alternating attention and distraction cycles.
Instead of wasting time and looking for concepts in a long module, small nuggets are easier to access and get to the exact point in a short span. Hence, it is essential to introduce bite-sized learning to students early in life so that they use the strategy throughout their learning process.
