The technological advancements and concentrated efforts towards improving the standards of everything have led to new trends all around. Luckily the world of learning, precisely e-learning, is no exception to this progress. When it comes to discussing the new educational approaches, Bite-sized learning is a term many people mention. As its name suggests, it involves teaching short but meaningful content to the learners in very short sessions.
The course contents are usually in the form of small, self-containing chunks of learning material called modules. These electronic modules are only focusing on one content and last no more than 15 minutes. The objectives behind each bite-sized teaching session are short and clearly defined. Some of the key considerations for it are as follows:
- The time span for which someone can give focused attention to something is very limited.
- Students are able to learn better with short learning spans having breaks in between.
- The more difficult is the learning content, the more time is required to understand it.
- Teaching the most relevant aspects of anything always support better learning.
Bite-sized learning is a great modern-day technique that has been specifically to suit the needs of the modern-time learner in a fast-paced world.
Factors that led to the development of bite-sized learning
There are a variety of reasons explaining the intense need for bite-sized learning today than it was ever before. Some of the most common of these reasons are as follows:
- Increased usage of mobile phones in learning environments:
Advancements in the educational field have led towards an exceptional increase in the usage of mobile phones by students for learning. The use of mobiles for learning and teaching has led many educational firms to design short lectures with limited content. Videos used for teaching and self-learning are also kept shorter and to the point to assist those who are watching them on phones. Studying on mobile phones makes it hard to sustain focus for longer times. This is one of the most common factors that influenced bite-sized learning.
- To practice budget-friendliness while developing a course
With an increase in the costs of paper and printing as well as other resources, designing a conventional course is not cost-effective at all. Moreover, institutes now need the instructors to design new courses every other semester. These conditions lead the teachers to develop small and bite-sized learning modules that are not only fast to design but also cost-effective.
- Lack of time faced by modern learners
Most of the millennials are now working part-time in restaurants and superstores to meet their daily-life needs. Students now go straight from their educational institutes to their workplaces and have no time for self-study. This need of the learners has been realized very effectively by the educationists. Bite-sized modules and learning contents have been thus introduced to meet the needs of such learners.
Once introduced to more than enough people, bite-sized learning was received with a lot of appreciation. The benefits of this new educational approach led to its critical appraisal by many and are guaranteeing its secure future.
Characteristics of Bite-sized Learning
There are a few characteristic features of bite-sized learning that differentiate it from other forms of learning. Some of the characteristics of bite-sized learning that are what make it what it is are as follows:
- There is just a single idea or aspect in the course content being taught at a time.
- The contents of bite-sized learning engage the students from the very beginning and are never boring.
- Divided chunks of information in bite-sized modules only contain closely related contents.
- Bite-sized learning allows the learners to process the contents right after they have understood them. This allows the brains to memorize and store the learned contents for long.
- The E-modules of bite-sized learning is designed in a manner to attract learners and are user-friendly.
- Teachers following the bite-sized approach allow the learner to learn things on their own pace and wherever they want.
- The course contents in bite-sized learning are always to the point and direct. There is little to no focus on the background and boring history of the concept at all.
Benefits of Bite-sized Learning
There are a lot of uses and benefits of adopting this minimalistic and direct educational approach. Some of the most obvious ones are as follows:
- Learners find it very easy to stay engaged to the contents when presented in bite-sized modules. Researches have demonstrated that studying too much without breaks makes it hard to digest the information or retain any of it. This makes bite-sized learning a better approach for students when it comes to memorizing the learned material.
- Bite-sized learning is very useful for when students need just-in-time support.
- This form of learning is more engaging and interesting as compared to conventional approaches
