 Hello, my name is Lindsay Mitchell and welcome to micro instruction and open education, creating inclusivity in simplicity. Again, my name is Lindsay Mitchell and I'm a teacher through Pinkerton Academy in Derry, New Hampshire, an instructor through the Virtual Learning Academy Charter School, and I am also a consultant and presenter through demonstrated success. I have been a classroom teacher for over 15 years and a virtual teacher for over 14 years. During this time, I have been everything from a mentor consultant and instructional coach. And my most recent graduate work has focused on the use of micro instruction in professional development. And that's what I'm going to talk to you about today. And most specifically on how to use micro instruction to design inclusive open education resources as well as how to use those effectively. Obviously in 10 minutes, I will not cover everything that there is about micro instruction. If you have any questions, please reach out by email or by phone and I'm happy to help. So during this little 10 minute video, these are sort of our learning goals. Hopefully we'll be able to define micro instruction and explain when it is appropriate. We can identify two characteristics of micro instruction and we can give one best practice when designing or using open education resources. So before we get started, I always like to start with a quote or a food for thought. Here's a good one for us today. Barriers exist in design and instruction, not learners. So essentially with micro instruction, what we're trying to do is bring a sense of simplicity and ease of access for all of our learners or users. Whether we are designing an online course, online tutorials, some professional development. The idea is to bring a big sense of simplicity to what we are doing to ensure that our learners or users can more easily access, use and understand the information. So what exactly is micro instruction? Micro instruction is essentially an instructional approach where a very core and critical concepts are presented in very small pieces to the learners. If we are talking about content itself, it's content that's organized in very concrete chunks that's very easy to access and very easy to use and apply. The key points in micro instruction is first of all, the instruction takes place in five to ten minute chunks. If we're talking about information, it's information that can be processed in five to ten minute chunks and five is better. Our learning objectives are very concrete. There's one, maybe two tops. These are often used at the start of a new unit or learning. It's very easily accessed and there's an opportunity for immediate application. So where exactly does this term come from? Well, first of all, there are some very similar terms to micro instruction, which you may know. Micro teaching, micro assessment, micro project-based learning, micro instruction is essentially incorporating all of these. It's a term that I have borrowed from computer programming and micro instruction refers to the basic programming that takes place in a program. It's the most basic codes for a computer program, the most simple ones where the quarter goes back and makes sure every single line of code works. This ensures that the greater program will be successful. So in our application for instruction or content, what we're saying is everything that is absolutely essential to be understood is broken down into very small pieces that are easily understood and accessed. That is sort of the goal with micro instruction. So why do we exactly use micro instruction? First of all, it's very responsive to learners' needs. Since everything is broken up into very small pieces, it ensures that the learner understands every step of the way. Those that process the information faster can move faster. Those that need to move slower can go back and recheck. Since everything's broken down into very small pieces, very often reteaching is not necessary. Because either the learner has been able to self-check or the instructor, if you're leading the process, you've been able to sort of check every step of the way to make sure they understand it. Since there's less reteaching, this often leads to deeper understanding because you don't need to spend time to reteach or re-explain material. And the final good benefit of it, it can be used with other approaches. Micro instruction can be used with any instructional approach and any instructional design, essentially. So what are the most important characteristics for success if you are choosing to use a micro learning approach to designing a course or designing materials for learners or users to access? The first is very short instructional pieces. I would personally aim for five minutes or less. Use hyperlinks. Everything should be accessible by a hyperlink. I would personally avoid logging into a new website. You want everything easily accessible by a hyperlink. Everything should be device-friendly, meaning it does not require a computer to be used and accessed. Not every learner or user is going to have a computer. So everything should be easily accessed through a device. They should focus on core competencies and topics. These are the basic essentials that we referred to earlier. These are the basic functional steps that need to be done. That's what micro instruction should be used for. Immediate application. The learner or user should have an immediate opportunity to apply the knowledge. For example, if there's a quick tutorial on how to follow a step on your website or your course, that should be directly above where the learner is actually going to go do that. That way they can immediately apply it. They should not have to go search to apply it. And finally, smaller file sizes. So everything that is accessed through micro instruction should be very small files. Otherwise it can take too long to download and may require technological advantages that not every person has. So how does this approach bring inclusivity here? I would argue by two ways. The first is you're simplifying the access. Since everything is accessible through a device, a hyperlink, small file sizes, anyone can access it. The second is because the content is streamlined. When content is streamlined, it accommodates a diverse learning needs. This could be a learner who needs to take more time to process information. Therefore, the smaller chunks of information work as well. Some learners may not have a large amount of time to invest in what they are doing. Keeping everything into shorter chunks allows them to get through that learning objective faster and more efficiently. Now, in our relationship to open education, micro instruction can also be very beneficial. First of all, when we are using our resources, we should really focus on the bare essentials and make sure everything can be accessible on a device. And also, when using our resources, really try to make sure whether the entire resource is necessary. Perhaps we don't need the whole 30 minute video. Maybe a 5 minute chunk, 10 minute chunk will give our learner or user the general information that they need. Then you can provide a hyperlink or a link to the greater video. Now, when it comes to creating resources, we should really consider the organization of the content and how to make all information immediately applied. In other words, really try to make sure anyone can go in and understand where they need to go. So, now we're coming down to some best practices. These are the top four that I tend to suggest to individuals. For audio and video content, use shorter videos. You can always provide links to snippets and links to the full length link. Utilize landing pages to organize written content and implement functional organization. The functional organization is essentially making it as simple to understand and giving the learner or user an immediate opportunity to apply what is in that video. We focus on exactly what is needed to understand the bare essentials. Again, do we need that entire document? Can we sort of simplify this a little bit and give opportunities for immediate application? I know this is a lot of information just a short period of time. If you have any questions, don't be afraid to reach out by email or by phone and you can scan the QR code to get a copy of this presentation. Thank you very much and you have a fabulous day.