Designing Microlearning (What Works in Talent Development)

Learn to Create Effective Microlearning

Microlearning is an essential tool that talent development professionals can use to fully engage their learners and tackle organizational performance needs. How do you know if the microlearning approach is successful? And what works?

In Designing Microlearning, the newest volume in ATD’s What Works in Talent Development series, experts Carla Torgerson and Sue Iannone answer these and other questions including:

• Why choose microlearning for your learners and organization?
• How do you determine your approach and then execute the implementation?
• How do you demonstrate success?
• Where do you go once you’ve started?

This guide for practitioners covers the four main uses for microlearning: preparation before a learning event, follow-up to support a learning event, stand-alone training, and performance support. It introduces MILE, the MIcroLEarning Design model, which outlines the details of creating a microlearning resource or program. Discover how to identify performance objectives; determine program technology and structure; create or select resources; promote what you designed; and monitor, modify, and evaluate it.

Included are case studies, tips, and resources, as well as more than 20 job aids, checklists, and worksheets. Samples consist of:

• an assessment of your organization’s readiness and compatibility for microlearning
• a worksheet to guide the design of your microlearning
• a tool for aligning your microlearning measurement and evaluation efforts
• a communication plan for sharing key information with learners, managers, and stakeholders.

Carla Torgerson, MEd, MBA, has more than 15 years of experience as an instructional designer and instructional strategist both on internal teams and in several consulting firms. She has worked with numerous Fortune 500 clients including Intuit, McDonald’s, Netflix, Facebook, Fidelity, Cargill, Medtronic, Merck, and Best Western. She has designed solutions ranging from $15,000 to more than $2 million. Carla has presented her thought leadership in the areas of eLearning, mobile learning, and microlearning across the nation at conferences, events, and workshops of leading learning organizations, including ATD and The eLearning Guild. Additionally, Carla developed MILE, the MIcroLEarning Design Model© and is the author of The Microlearning Guide to Microlearning.

Carla is currently a Director of Instructional Design at Bull City Learning, a specialized eLearning agency that provides digital learning solutions for companies in a wide range of industries, as well as nonprofit organizations. Bull City Learning offers a full suite of solutions including learning needs assessments, curriculum design, content development, and training deployment support.

Carla has a Master of Education (MEd) focused on technology-based education. She also has a Master of Business Administration (MBA), which helps her to see training through a business lens.

Connect with Carla on LinkedIn for insights and announcements, www.linkedin.com/in/carlatorgerson.

Sue Iannone, CPLP, has 25 years of learning-leadership experience in the commercial pharmaceutical and biotech space. Since 2016 she has been the Vice President and a partner of Bull City Blue, an end-to-end learning agency created to address the needs of training and talent development organizations within the life science industry.

Under Sue’s leadership, Bull City Blue has served a multitude of organizations to solve their complex learning and performance problems of local and global scale. Sue has helped learning leaders build strategic business plans for training teams, develop product launch learning processes and tools, create learning solutions for sales meetings, overhaul new hire learning pathways, and create training to meet countless other business needs. Sue has worked with several Fortune 500 organizations in the life sciences including AbbVie, Biogen, Philips, Sanofi, Merck, and Celgene.

Prior to joining Bull City Blue, Sue served as the Director of Inflammation & Immunology Commercial Training at Celgene and as Vice President for the Board of Directors of the Life Sciences Trainers and Educators Network (LTEN). Having worked for small, medium, and large biotech companies in her career, Sue has led the design and development of numerous learning initiatives―including more than 20 product launches. She has also led multiple performance-consulting initiatives designed to increase the effectiveness of the learning organizations in which she served.

Sue holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology and is a Certified Professional in Learning and Performance (CPLP) since 2007―this unique combination makes her well suited to serve the learning needs of her life science clients.

Connect with Sue on LinkedIn for insights and announcements, www.linkedin.com/in/sueiannone.