Educational trends and best practises are constantly updating, which means teachers need to constantly update their skillset as well. However, given the nature of the job, teachers are not known for their abundance of spare time. So how can they ensure they don’t neglect their professional development?
Using microlearning to boost professional development
Quick, small, focused lessons – or microlearning – may be the answer. You might’ve heard about microlearning by another term: chunking. Chunking, the concept that the brain can only retain 5 to 9 facts before either committing it to long-term memory or losing them.
This limitation is widely known to e-learning professionals, course designers, and pre-school teachers, but somehow is forgotten when we reach high school, college, and corporate training. Teachers seem to forget their own spacing-out experiences during long, boring lectures, and now deliver the same torture to their students… and then wonder why their learners can’t remember any of it.
This learning strategy may have gained popularity thanks to e-learning, but can be used in a plethora of different settings. You can apply the principles of microlearning to your professional development so that you have an easier, manageable, and effective way of staying on top of the latest trends in education.
What is microlearning?
Microlearning refers to segmented learning experiences – breaking down learning into short, manageable pieces of information. These could either be small learning units or short-term activities. The key here is brevity.
The benefits of microlearning
- Affordable
Many CPTD activities can be completed online, which saves money before you’ve even purchased a course (Via Afrika courses are a great option ????). There’s no paying for petrol, parking, venue, workbooks, or lecturer. You can also purchase short courses over any given period of time, which means you’ll be paying less, with more flexibility to budget.
- Flexible
Because these courses are online, you can slot them into your schedule however you like. Microlearning works best in short bursts, which means you can spend 2 minutes learning something during your lunch break, or 15 minutes just before bed – it’s totally up to you. Learn on the go, at school, or at home.
- Boosts retention
According to research, when you study something repeatedly and revisit the material when you are about to forget it, you retain the information better. Repeated study works well with microlearning units as they are small, self-contained and easy to return to. You can apply this principle to any course or textbook, really, by breaking the chapters up into smaller units.Lack of time, resources, or money can no longer be an excuse to ignore your professional development. By applying microlearning principles to SACE courses and CPTD activities you can effectively broaden your own horizon.
