New Micro-credentials for Summer Professional Learning

As part of our robust micro-credential ecosystem, we proudly partner with organizations to provide opportunities for personalized professional learning. Our research-backed micro-credentials are digital certifications that verify an individual’s competence in a specific skill or set of skills, regardless of where and how they learned them. Because they are on-demand, micro-credentials also enable educators to continue their professional learning from home during periods like COVID-19 school closures and summer break.

Over the last five months, Digital Promise launched 18 new micro-credentials with our partners, and the ecosystem is growing every day.

Micro-credentials launched in 2020

To support our nation’s educators as they shift to digital learning due to COVID-19 school closures, Digital Promise has developed a stack of five Transitioning to Digital Learning micro-credentials. This stack includes:

1. Conducting a Needs Assessment for Digital Learning
2. Developing a Virtual Desk for Digital Learning
3. Designing Synchronous and Asynchronous Instruction for Digital Learning
4. Communicating with Learners and Families to Support Digital Learning
5. Engaging in Continuous Improvement for Digital Learning

Schools and districts looking to support their educators or individual educators looking for streamlined resources can utilize this stack to support digital learning that centers around equity and access. Educators are encouraged to complete this stack in order.

The Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning, whose mission is to create and innovate in the field of Mind, Brain, and Education Science research, has launched three micro-credentials in their Design Thinking stack:

• Assessment, Evaluation, and the Feedback of Design Thinking and Creativity
• Creativity in the Classroom
• The Design Thinking Process

Educators can demonstrate their skills in cultivating creativity, design-thinking practices, and assessment in their classroom environment and culture.

The Kentucky Valley Educational Cooperative (KVEC), one of eight education cooperatives in Kentucky consisting of 22 member school districts and serving more than 50,000 learners, launched four micro-credentials in the Teaching Students with Disabilities stack. They include:

• Co-Teaching for Educators of Students with Disabilities: Using a co-teaching model, educators demonstrate their skills in ensuring students with disabilities can access general curriculum and are provided the appropriate accommodations.
• Curriculum-Based Measurement: The educator develops and implements a curriculum-based measurement to understand how a student is progressing.
• Eliciting Student Thinking: The educator designs and delivers instruction that elicits student thinking, then determines instructional steps guided by evidence of student thinking.
• Providing Actionable Feedback to Advance Student Outcomes: The educator provides effective, actionable feedback to guide thinking, learning, and behavior of students with disabilities.

Mid-Pacific’s Kupu Hou Academy provides teachers and school leaders with the tools and support to transform schools and bring deeper learning to life in the classroom. Their first micro-credential, Formative Assessments in Deeper Learning, is designed to help educators demonstrate their skills in designing formative assessments for deeper learning.

The Modern Classroom Project empowers educators to create blended, mastery-based classrooms for all learners. In their first micro-credential, Planning for Modern Classroom Instruction, the educator plans a blended, self-paced, and mastery-based learning experience for learners.

The National Rural Education Association is the oldest established national organization of its kind in the United States; it has grown to include rural school administrators, teachers, board members, regional service agency personnel, researchers, and more. Through their first micro-credential, Career Advising Specialist, educators demonstrate their competence to become connection points in their schools to drive mindset shifts and build career readiness for learners.

San Diego County Office of Education (SDCOE) serves the county’s most vulnerable students and supports school leaders, teachers, and students across the county. Earlier this year, SDCOE launched Using Motivational Design and Innovation to Enhance Learner Engagement. Through this micro-credential, an educator identifies components of motivational design, explores innovative teaching practices, and implements a lesson designed to enhance and increase learner motivation in the classroom.

UTeach Computer Science provides classroom-ready high school computer science curricula and teacher professional development to foster computational thinking and engage all students through hands-on project-based learning. Their two new micro-credentials allow educators to demonstrate their skill and expertise on:

• Pair Programming, a research-based instructional practice that’s been shown to increase collaborative learning and student confidence, and
• Peer Instruction, where students are supported to master content knowledge and are able to explain their ideas.

Digital Promise has developed product certifications to provide education stakeholders with signals about the quality of research used to design products. For our Research-Based Design: Product Certification, the product team publicly shares research behind the product design. Apply by June 19 to be included in our next announcement.

Start earning micro-credentials

Begin earning micro-credentials today on the Digital Promise Micro-credential Platform. Find micro-credentials that can be earned outside the classroom in our Micro-credential COVID-19 Library, or use the Micro-credential Explorer to find the right micro-credentials for you.

If you are interested in developing your own micro-credentials, contact us.