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In a world where people are checking their smartphones 9 times an hour, competition for learner’s attention is extra fierce. According to KnowledgeGuru, recent learning trends such as mobile, gamification, game-based learning, performance support, use of learning science and interactive video are all attempts to capture learner attention and engage them on a deeper level. Among relatively new trends is microlearning which is arguably the most effective technique for today’s students.

Kirstie Greany, Senior Learning Consultant at Elucidat defines microlearning as breaking a large chunk of information into small sections which is target or specific outcome based. Microlearning is mostly associated with e-learning which delivers bite-sized specific pieces of content to an audience, when and where they need it. Microlearning content can be in the form of a presentation, activity, game, discussion, video, quiz, book chapter, or any other format from which someone learns. Typically, these self-contained information nuggets range in duration from 1 to 15 minutes and are usually focused on one or two tightly defined learning objectives, unlike conventional e-learning units that can take up to 60 minutes.

Tom Spiglanin, Ph.D. scientist turned learning strategist/designer in Aerospace University, the educational division of the Aerospace Corporation, describes microlearning as a one-objective product that needn’t navigation and doesn’t have inherently complex structure. Spiglanin points it out that microlearning units are not simply chunked learning content. As a part of a larger product, such unit of learning content may require knowledge or context provided by earlier chunks in the overall sequence, while microlearning, in contrast, stands alone and provides its own context where needed.

Holly Clark, an Education Strategist from San Diego, California, a Google Certified Innovator and National Board Certified Teacher, thinks highly of microlearning: ‘This learning is frequently fueled by curiosity and inquiry. A deep dive results in richer understanding through actual examples and rapid fire metacognitive thinking’.

Clark highlights key points why microlearning is so revolutionary. Among others, the list includes notifications that lead to rich conversations and crucial information, new connections that are organic and not forced and quick creative inspiration. However, easy access and on demand information are the benefits of microlearning that are pointed out by most of educators and learning strategists.

According to Clark, ‘easy access’ implies that learning channels are open to everyone without applying for a special programme or paying exorbitant fees for classes, while ‘on demand information’ means one can get as much information as they want when they want it and control amount of time spent consuming learning material.

Microlearning units tend to be better than larger modules for just-in-time support, Greany agrees. When one needs a refresher on particular material, it is much more convenient to watch a 2 minutes video on this particular topic rather than to wade through a 60-minute module that covers all the related information. These bite-size nuggets can also be used flexibly, being combined and consumed depending on learner’s preferences.  Learners only have to work through the topics that are meaningful to them, and access them in an order that meets their immediate needs.

Connie Malamed, the author of the Instructional Design Guru app and the book Visual Language for Designers, also sees such benefits as immediate results, effective microlearning enabling people to quickly close a small knowledge or skill gap (e.g. some universities are using a microlearning strategy to help students learn about collaborative and social technologies) and quick achievements: because people can typically process around four bits of information at a time, it’s easier for a learner to achieve success from a short learning intervention. It is also notable that e-learning pieces designed to be meaningful in a short session (10-15 minutes) lead to better performance. As work by Dr. Paul Kelley has shown, intense 20-minute bursts of study, separated by 10-minute breaks, can yield better long-term memory retention than longer, continuous periods of study.

Summing up all the benefits of microlearning, it is fair to say this approach saves time, energy and money. However, effectiveness of microlearning has been debated within the learning industry, as short pieces of content don’t necessarily equal good learning or improved performance.

Malamed draws our attention to the fact that there is insufficient research to know whether microlearning is an effective strategy for reaching long-term learning goals, for which microlearning interventions could end up as content fragments that are not tied together. There is also imminent potential for confusion as microlearning solution requires from learners an ability to switch between a wide variety of formats. Last but not least, microlearning might appear to be lacking cognitive synthesis, as educators can’t be certain that learners will synthesize content from bits of information well enough to construct appropriate mental models.

It is also crucial to analyze when the audience and content can benefit from extreme chunking, and therefore well-designed microlearning can be a good strategy. Sharon Bollen, Ed.D., professor Emerita of Art  in the Department of Art, Fine Art and Art Education and a consultant of the Mount’s Art Education program, is certain that not all training fits the microlearning mode, some skills are not meant to be acquired in 5 to 15 minutes per day. She believes that microlearning is not useful when people need to learn complex skills, processes, or behaviors, such as project management, agile software development and processes, instructional design, any software tool or teamwork skills. What is more important, she writes, education industry needs ‘better clarity on when we need to formally train people, when we need to reinforce knowledge or skills people are building on their own, and when we simply need to keep key principles or practices front and center’.

At its best, microlearning helps learners build long term memory as well as enhance knowledge they already have and provides immediate access to short, targeted lessons and support materials. In the right context and done with the overall experience in mind, microlearning can be highly effective, while at its worst, it can be another distraction to ignore.

The thing is that today when we speak about a degree as a means to build a career, we speak about university rankings and well-known university brands rather than about actual level of skills development. For example, it is often the case that graduating from Harvard does not really say anything about the student’s practical skills or ability to contribute to a real world organization. Instead, it signals the world of potential employers that they were accepted to such a reputable institution as Harvard. In short, the current paradigm puts too little emphasis on mechanisms for measuring knowledge, skills and expertise (such as work portfolios) and way too much emphasis on the brand value of higher educational institution.

This certainly counts well in favour of Coursera, EdX and the like. An increasing number of public universities started offering dramatically lower cost Master’s Degrees on MOOC platforms over the past year, which is a big step in the right direction. As thousands of universities and established companies turn to the online education platforms to offer their courses, this will continue to enhance the credibility of online learning and shift the assessment of education from an emphasis on brand name to more direct evaluations of knowledge.

All this sounds good in theory but the reality is so far not as rosy as it may seem. Although MOOC platforms show a great potential to increase diversity of courses, the reality is that they have moved away from niche courses in the liberal arts to focus on courses that get the biggest audiences, such as ones on clearly marketable skills like computer programming.

The question of low costs is also nuanced. While entry-level courses that take 4-12 hours cost close to nothing, degrees that take 2-4 years to complete cost money, starting off at 9,000 USD. Although this is less than is charged by universities for campus-based courses, it still strains the wallet and does not fully solve the problem of student debt burdens.

Last but not least, although the credibility for the certificates and degrees offered by the MOOC platforms is growing, they are still generally perceived as valuable additions to your resume, rather than a full-fledged equivalent to a college degree.

According to Levine, this poses a threat of splitting the world of higher education in “two kinds of education.” One is more likely to be full time and end in degrees – it will be likely to be more expensive and will therefore be selected by wealthy students, while the other, online model will be available much more cheaply to populations that can’t afford the first kind of education. In other words, this system will promote inequality rather than provide all students with equal opportunities.

Some experts disagree with this grim view on the new world brought in by Coursera and the like. Debora Spar, senior associate dean of Harvard Business School Online, believes that “our physical campuses, like cathedrals of an earlier age, could become historical relics — cherished, yes, and still used, but no longer central to the educational mission.” She believes that although small groups will still select – and pay for – the bundled undergraduate experience (four years, on campus, with education plus everything else), the majority will switch to “an a la carte model” offered by the MOOC platforms.

“Most critically, our job is to acknowledge the inequities that mark our existing structures of higher education, and then harness the power of digital technologies to imagine something better,” Spar concludes. “Something that breaks the strangleholds of physical capacity and high fixed costs to deliver education that is affordable, accessible, and intellectually exciting.”