Trends in Adult Education

Well kneadless to say, my attention was peaked when I heard about the term "microlearning".

The term micro learning can be summed up as a set of compact learning modules often utilizing a form of technology a type of E-learning that are designed to reduce learner fatigue.

Basically reducing the learning to bite sized pieces the process is designed to create better learner attention and increase retention rate.

One current issue that often plagues a adult classroom is the constant distractions that many adults deal with which can be attributed to life outside the classroom. 

In the baking education the demographic of our students has a wide range.  Many of our students join baking later in life, making the decision to pursue a life long dream or a career change. Many of these students may have distractions and life obligations outside of the classroom that include dependents, work, and partners. The majority of the students, however range in age from 18 to 27 bringing with them a different distraction, the mobile device.

Micro learning and the use of technology, has already been utilized to some degree in the educational kitchen classroom. Many schools use a online platforms for learning and some schools are completely online with a self paced learning.  A online culinary school, Rouxbe works with several hotel companies providing short courses and self paced continuing education for employees. 

https://rouxbe.com/site/bread-baking-arts/

Short compact learning modules for a hands on program such as baking are a perfect way to give students the information that they need ahead of time in the same fashion as the flipped classroom. The use of mobile device learning gives mature adults more freedom to balance life and learning as well as providing a familiar way to connect for young adults. 

Instructors would have to shift prep periods to include online learning and for some of us that may mean becoming the learner ourselves. As it goes with mobile devices the idiom of "if you cant beat them, join them." is perfect.

Adjusting curriculum to fit this style of learning would be a task worth undertaking, creating short online quizzes, making videos, and games is easy these days with plenty of online applications a websites that enable learners to simply log on and complete, watch or play. 

Kahoot,  https://kahoot.com/ allows instructors to create games that students can join and play puzzle.org,  https://puzzel.org/ instructors can create a variety of learning puzzles that can be played quickly and easily.

Elearingindustry.com posted an article describing what micro learning is and why does it make sense, its pros and cons.

I find that the article and their description accurate and I agree with the limitations of it. While microlearning might not be suited for in-depth training, I think that it can very useful to support the in-depth training. 

To utilize this technique it would be necessary to rework some curriculum to fit into the parameters of it. Micro learning would be great with micro assessments or assignments. Setting wider time frames for learners to complete the tasks is easy as the tasks are shortened and several tasks could be accomplished outside of regular school hours, giving the learner the feeling of control as they decide when they want to complete it.

While micro learning is based on media rich technology it can be a very useful tool for hospitality training of all types. Short training videos, recorded culinary or baking instructor demonstrations, or small snippets of information for students to study at their own convenience, all would be perfect for fast paced environments.

https://elearningindustry.com/what-is-microlearning-benefits-best-practices