One surveyi showed that 97% of respondents who had completed at least one micro-credential indicated they wanted to pursue more in the future.That’s because micro-credentials are more than mandatory continuing education. They’re formative learning opportunities that:
Studies showii teachers are dissatisfied with traditional professional development. Workshops often fail to connect with teachers’ day-to-day needs and lack the kind of job-embedded learning that leads to long-term success. Effective PD happens in context: it directly relates to the competencies and skills teachers use every day in class.
Professional learning that integrates formative learning strategies maximize growth. With this kind of learning pathway, educators learn, practice, receive feedback and demonstrate mastery of each skill for a given micro-credential. It requires self-reflection and self-evaluation, and culminates in users selecting and submitting evidence to show proficiency.
Teachers are in the best position to understand their own needs, as well as their students’. Micro-credentials empower teachers to choose the skills and competencies to pursue bringing their own goals, needs and interests — and those of their students — to the table.
Granular by nature, micro-credentials build competencies in small, focused steps, making them easy to incorporate into daily practice. By breaking the evidence down into smaller, more manageable pieces, and requiring proof of competency, they help close the gaps between knowledge acquisition, implementation and mastery.
PD that centers on seat time typically doesn’t require much more than attendance — a poor measure of mastery. Micro-credentials make the case for a competency-based learning model, requiring demonstration of skills and abilities. In other words, they require evidence.
Discover micro-credentials as part of the Learning & Collaboration Resources in Frontline Professional Growth.
i Acree, L. (2016). Seven Lessons Learned From Implementing Micro-credentials. Raleigh, NC. Friday Institute for Educational Innovation at the NC State University College of Education.
ii Teachers Know Best: Teachers' Views on Professional
Development. http://k12education.gatesfoundation.org/resource/teachers-know-best-teachers-views-on-professional-development/
Our world moves fast, and teachers can get inundated with new things to do: Chromebooks, and one-to-one initiatives, and iPads, and every other strategy or philosophy or piece of technology that promises to transform the classroom. How can school leaders who believe in the value of micro-credentials gain buy-in from teachers and see that the promise of competency-based learning is realized?
The Weilenmann School of Discovery, a charter school in Utah, has seen tremendous success with micro-credentials. When we spoke with several of their administrators and teachers, they offered some suggestions for getting teachers on board.
This helps to prevent Shiny Object Syndrome. “If you don’t make good research-based decisions, you’re bound to be kicked around by every fad,” said Cindy Phillips, Weilenmann’s Executive Director. “You look at the research on the efficiency to time of this kind of professional development, and you just can’t beat it.”
“We ask our teachers to set very specific goals that are aligned to our state standards of professionalism. And we identify the micro-credential that goes with that goal.”
“Instead of assigning a micro-credential, we asked them to choose,” said Kat Mitchell, Lower School Director. “And when we asked them to choose, we had far better success in them wanting to do it.”
Perhaps this isn’t appropriate for every organization, but Weilenmann offers teachers a small monetary incentive for every micro-credential completed, up to three. Incentives don’t need to be financial, however — recognition and career pathing can be motivating as well.
Perhaps multiple teachers are pursuing the same micro-credential at the same time. If so, grease the wheels for collaboration.
Is winter break coming up? That might be a great time to encourage teachers to pursue a micro-credential. Or perhaps include them as part of summer PD.
At Weilenmann, administrators are teachers as well, and they take part in the same professional learning that the rest of the certified staff does. Cindy said this helps keep them aware of what teachers need on an ongoing basis.
“Students will always do something that they perceive as fun, and that they see that there’s something meaningful about it,” said Cindy. “One of the best ways to get buy-in before the first year even starts is to have a fantastically fun moment with your teachers, where you’ve previewed all kinds of great curriculum, assigned it out, and have the teachers demonstrate how they’re going to use it the very first day, so that your buy-in is almost immediate because it’s fun and meaningful. The same way you would hook your students in.”
“There is no point in developing qualities of great teaching, or leadership abilities or whatever it may be, and having it hidden away in some corner of the school. You need to not only allow your teachers the autonomy to innovate and to utilize new skills in new ways, even if it wasn’t exactly what you had planned, because they’ve now learned something — they’ve grown beyond what they were doing before and want to try it out. As an administrator, if you snuff that out, you have completely undermined the credibility of all the premises on which you say that your school is based.”
Micro-credentials provide a rich opportunity for conversations about teaching, said Steve Williams, Weilenmann’s Middle School Dean. “One thing I’ve seen is that teachers are talking about things they’ve learned. They would talk about things that they would improve… I have seen that among all of our teachers, and I think they want to do this. I think 90% of the teachers that I have talked with are interested in doing more micro-credentials.”
“I don’t think anyone appreciates a push-down initiative,” said Steve. Communicating early and being up front with faculty about the what, why and how of micro-credentials, and giving teachers a chance to discuss, ask questions and react to them is important. “That there’s opportunity to talk about it, and it’s not just something you have to put your head down and do. And I think that gives people strength and a sense that they’re a part of this, and that their feedback really does matter in the process.”