Learning Approach Centered on Skills and Micro-Certifications
In the ever-evolving landscape of education, two education experts, Rita Fennelly-Atkinson and Christina Luke Luna, are championing the use of skills-based learning and microcredentialing in K-12 districts and classrooms. Their insights highlight microcredentials as a flexible, competency-based tool that personalizes professional development and supports skill mastery, creating meaningful pathways for both educators and students.
By offering educators the opportunity to develop skills at their own pace and according to their specific needs, microcredentials break away from traditional one-size-fits-all professional development sessions. Instead, educators earn credentials by demonstrating mastery of discrete, relevant skills, fostering a culture of lifelong learning and continuous professional growth that is job-embedded and highly relevant to classroom practice.
The flexibility of microcredentials, as digital and often modular entities, allows teachers and students to engage with them anytime and anywhere. This adaptability is a key advantage in adapting to diverse learning environments and schedules.
Moreover, microcredentials can be accumulated to build larger qualifications or degrees, supporting personalized career trajectories. This stacking of credentials provides tangible proof of skill acquisition that resonates with both educators and employers.
Competency-based education frameworks help connect the learning of skills both horizontally (across subjects) and vertically (deeper mastery at grade levels). This approach allows students to demonstrate what they know and can do rather than just time spent in class.
Microcredentialing benefits not only teachers for professional development but can also be integrated into classrooms to recognize students’ acquisition of specific skills. This integration supports competency-based assessment practices aligned with workforce readiness.
Programs like the Center for Learner Pathways, a new program within Digital Promise, emphasize the importance of ongoing feedback, support, and real-time implementation of classroom strategies. The Center for Learner Pathways works with hundreds of schools and has a microcredential platform where educators can find or be given a menu of microcredentials to choose from.
Digital Promise, an organisation that has provided more than 20,000 microcredentials to educators, recently released a report titled "Exponential Change Brings Exponential Choice: Navigating Life, Learning, and Career." The report underscores the importance of skills-based or competency-based learning in providing teachers and their students with more practical and equitable opportunities to demonstrate their knowledge.
Many teachers have expressed that even if they were denied a microcredential, it was a positive experience due to the growth mindset and actionable feedback they received. The process is designed to be rigorous but also encouraging.
In summary, microcredentials offer a flexible, competency-based tool that personalizes professional development and supports skill mastery, creating pathways for both K-12 educators and students to progress meaningfully in their learning and career readiness.
- Microcredentials, often digital and interactive, enable educators and students to learn skills at their own pace, fostering a culture of lifelong learning and personal growth.
- By providing a menu of options for teachers to choose from, programs like the Center for Learner Pathways support competency-based assessment practices and workforce readiness for students.
- The stacking of microcredentials can build larger qualifications or degrees, offering teachers and students a personalized approach to career trajectories and education-and-self-development.
- In K-12 districts, the use of microcredentials in professional development sessions breaks away from traditional methods, focusing on job-embedded, relevant, and skill-based learning.
- With supportive feedback and ongoing implementation of classroom strategies, microcredentialing programs, such as those provided by Digital Promise, promote a growth mindset among educators, offering practical and equitable opportunities for skill demonstration and self-improvement.
