Is microlearning the next revolution in education?
When human rights are under threat, we must innovate. Today, 263 million children and youth do not have access to formal education, and 3 in 4 youth lack the skills needed for employment. With 6.5 billion smartphone users worldwide, it’s time to secure open access to engaging career and life skills content for all.
Despite the information age we live in, learning experiences are hindered by a global teacher shortage, shorter attention spans, and an increase in privatised education. Enter The Rumie Initiative: a human-centered mission to protect and promote access to learning with mobile-first microlearning content.
What is microlearning?
Microlearning is more than adopting a platform for distribution. It’s a fundamental change in the way we develop learning experiences.
A growing body of research supports that microlearning outweighs some of the alternatives when it comes to cognitive performance. For instance, when participants in a 2017 study were given “smaller slices [of] content, they retained the information and performed better.”
The key to microlearning is the short time it takes to consume what The Rumie Initiative calls Bytes — an affectionate name for the bite-sized lessons available on Rumie Learn. Bytes are refreshingly short and witty pieces of content that can take between three to nine minutes to read. Each piece encourages the reader to engage in activities, exercises, and deeper research in order to apply what they’ve learned.
Microlearning is a movement
Leaders in education and learning initiatives are looking for mobile-first infrastructure to engage learners directly. The Rumie Initiative’s founder, Tariq Fancy, was an early advocate for microlearning after observing the huge gap between the modern learner and traditional learning methods. He noticed that despite the information age we live in, we still rely on long, convoluted chapters of textbooks, gated academic articles, and standardised curriculums to expose learners to life-changing ideas. This takes time and resources that students, employees, and families often struggle to meet.
In the most challenging of cases, there is a political crisis threatening formal education. Recently, The Rumie Initiative successfully pivoted its microlearning program efforts in Afghanistan, where over 3 million girls and young women were denied an education during the Taliban takeover. Since the pivot, 200,000 Afghans in Pakistan were able to continue learning with community-powered content. This success demonstrates the incredible potential to create mobile solutions for learning that transcend the need to sit in a classroom.
A distribution strategy is critical
About two-thirds of the world’s school-aged children do not have access to internet at home, so creativity is an important part of distributing open-access microlearning content. So far, The Rumie Initiative has found two solutions. For rural programs in Southeast Asia, we partnered with GSMA – an organisation working to expand access to mobile networks globally. During in-person workshops, we encourage participants to download the Bytes to a personal device so they may continue to learn at home.
Since launching Rumie Learn two years ago, the site has generated over 1.9 million learners, while strategic program partners such as Junior Achievement are spreading the word and expanding their microlearning programs across global locations. There is also a thriving Rumie Discord community where Community Manager Kamelia Valkova guides 1500+ learners on their career and life skills journey.
Microlearning re-engages employees
Organisations both large and small are enjoying surprising benefits when they implement microlearning. When global youth non-profit Junior Achievement introduced a series of workshops with The Rumie Initiative, 86% of participants joined out of personal interest which resulted in new employee connections in a virtual setting.
Rapid-authoring tools such as Rumie Build bridge the digital divide for employees without a grueling implementation process. Put simply – employees find Byte-writing fun! The user-friendly interface allows for a fast implementation for organisations, with an adoption period as short as 3 months.
What’s next for microlearning?
An estimated 78.05% of the world’s population currently use a smartphone, and the number of smartphone subscriptions is projected to increase to 7.7 billion by 2027. Given the support from learning experts, partners, and educators, microlearning will continue gaining momentum as an accessible mode of learning for youth and beyond. With the right solutions and partnerships, microlearning has the capacity to facilitate independent learning and contribute to bridging the digital divide in education.