What is bite-size learning?
Bite-size learning is a phrase that has come to prominence in the last five years or so. In particular, promoters of the Learning at Work Day have adopted the phrase to refer to training courses that can be run for employees in the workplace without impinging too greatly on their output. An obvious implication of the phrase ‘bite-size’ is that whatever it is, it’s a small chunk that can be easily digested – in the case of learning, quickly learned and easily remembered. With employers eager to gain productivity from their workforce, the prospect of sending them on two or three day courses may not be as seductive as the idea of training them while they’re sitting at their own desks – or in the training room down the corridor. Some intellectual weight is added to the concept when we relate it to psychologist George Miller’s famous research that seemed to suggest that people could only remember the ‘magic number, seven plus or minus two.’ The cavalier way this research has been interprete
