Micro-credentialing Personalizes Teacher Professional Learning

How many professional development sessions do educators attend that do not pertain to the content area they teach or do not strengthen their instructional skills in the classroom?  Any teacher or administrator can verify that in the majority of professional learning situations, they have experienced frustration due to the lack of relevancy of the subject matter.

Educators may soon have the option of engaging in job-embedded, personalized professional learning based on the needs of the students identified through the analysis of classroom assessment data.  Micro-credentialing, a research-based model, provides the opportunity for teachers and administrators to develop competencies and gain recognition for the skills they learn throughout their careers in a “performance-based” system rather than seat time or credit hours.  Educators can start and continue the process of earning micro-credentials on their own time and at their own pace.

In Kentucky, new legislation through the passage of SB 117, has opened an avenue through which certified teachers may renew certificates or achieve advanced ranks other than through a university-based program. To that end, the Education Professional Standards Board (EPSB) has appointed an ad hoc committee to review options to achieve KY’s second tier of professional licensure known as Rank II. Micro-credentialing for advanced ranks is part of that discussion.

The Kentucky Valley Educational Cooperative (KVEC) has been involved in the creation of micro-credentials in collaboration with Digital Promise, which identified KVEC as a National Educational Innovation Cluster.  BloomBoard serves as the platform for a candidate’s application and submission requirements for micro-credentials.  BloomBoard is the host for over 150 micro-credentials, with the majority of them having no fee.  On this website (https://bloomboard.com/microcredential/view/78181736-e82a-4655-aea2-ccd23de32572) an educator can identify micro-credentials that align to professional need, obtain step-by-step instructions on how to earn the micro-credential badge, review the rubric showing specific requirements for each credential and apply for the micro-credential.  After successfully submitting the required documents, videos and other assignments, the submission is assessed and when successful, the educators will receive a “badge” for the micro-credential.  A click on the badge will verify the educator “has attained this skill and is good at it” (Jennifer Carroll, KVEC).

KVEC currently uses micro-credentials as job-embedded professional learning. KVEC staff is in the process of creating a “stack” of micro-credentials focused on Shared Leadership: Collaborative Coaching (currently offered on BloomBoard), Assessment Literacy (in review), Purposeful Data Analysis (in review), Efficient and Effective Time Management (in review) and Maximizing Teacher Leadership (in development).  Three institutions in California (Brandman University, Fresno Pacific University, and Portland State University) have agreed to use the Collaborative Coaching micro-credential developed by KVEC for graduate credits within their programs. This type of collaboration could be replicated in KY and improve partnerships between the KVEC region and state colleges of education. In areas such as KVEC, with no physical presence of a college of education, micro-credentialing developed at the district level in real-time environments would bring meaningful professional learning for teachers, while allowing them to gain graduate credit should they choose to obtain an advanced college level certification.

KVEC staff is communicating with educators in Tennessee, North Carolina and Wisconsin to gain knowledge about micro-credentialing projects in those states.  Contact has been made with the National Standards Board with the hope that micro-credentials will push teachers toward national certification.  Other educational agencies, including the Council for Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) and the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB), have been invited to participate in the planning phase.  Work with the Education Professional Standards Board (EPSB) will hopefully create a pathway toward certificate renewal in Kentucky. Further initiatives could include multi-regional and multi-state collaboration.

A meeting is scheduled in Hazard on July 19, 2017, to bring together national and state groups and school leadership to discuss options for professional learning using micro-credentials as professional development and/or alternative pathways for licensure renewal.  Objectives of the forum will be to share information regarding the success and lessons learned using micro-credentials, to develop a sense of need for micro-credentials in rural areas such as the KVEC region which does not have a physical presence of a university/college of education, and to serve as a catalyst for change in KY, beginning in the KVEC region by using micro-credentials as a cultural shift in educator preparation and continuous learning.

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