Micro-Credentialing: A New Look at Teacher Professional Development

A recent blog post from Education Week takes a look at the current state of professional development for teachers and finds a brave new world of “micro-credentialing.” The following example shows just how it works:

Last year, Kay Staley and Jessica Scherer, literacy coaches in the Kettle Moraine district in Wisconsin, led groups of teachers in a book study on close reading—a complex and important skill emphasized in the Common Core State Standards.

Participants were paired with a coach and peers as they wrestled with how to teach kids to analyze details of an author’s narrative technique. At the end of the school year, the teachers documented how they applied close-reading instruction in class and how it impacted student learning. A panel of educators reviewed the submissions, and the best earned those teachers salary increases worth several hundred dollars.

Teacher “micro-credentialing” is an effort to make professional development more personalized, engaging, and relevant to teachers. There is no formal, agreed-upon definition for a micro-credential. Indeed, the term itself irritates some because of its vagueness and because it implies an independent, accredited stamp of approval from some kind of government body.

In any case, the idea refers to bite-sized competencies that, via samples of student work, videos, and other artifacts, teachers show that they’ve mastered to students’ or colleagues’ benefit. Then, in vetting each teacher’s submission, the micro-credential’s authorizer either asks the teacher to go back and dig deeper, or approves the submission—sometimes issuing the teacher a digital “badge” to represent attainment of the skill.

To be sure, supporters say, micro-credentials don’t replace traditional professional-development channels so much as give them focus and coherence.

“We’re agnostic about how you actually develop these skills,” said Karen Cator, the chief executive officer of Digital Promise, a nonprofit group that last fall unveiled a platform on which educators can earn some 120 micro-credentials, from one on disaggregating data to one on classroom management. “There are just so many ways of learning things, and we want to see many more opportunities, whether it’s through online communities of practice, watching videos, talking to your peers, getting a coach. It’s an expansive view of professional learning.”