Building Educator Capacity Through Microcredentials

[00:01] Announcer:

Welcome to Principal Center Radio, helping you build capacity for instructional leadership. Here's your host, Director of the Principal Center, Dr. Justin Bader. Welcome everyone to Principal Center Radio.

[00:13] SPEAKER_02:

I'm your host, Justin Bader, and I'm honored to be joined today by Laura McCullough and Eric Carbaugh, two of the four authors of Building Educator Capacity Through Micro-Credentials. Laura is recently retired after serving nine years as executive director of Virginia's ASCD affiliate, where she was responsible for designing and overseeing a wide range of professional learning programs. Eric Carbaugh is a professor of mathematics education at James Madison University, and as an educational consultant, he's worked with teachers and leaders in more than 100 schools and districts on curriculum, instruction, and assessment. And we're here today to talk about their new book, Building Educator Capacity Through Micro-Credentials.

[00:55] Announcer:

And now, our feature presentation.

[00:57] SPEAKER_02:

Laurie and Eric, welcome to Principal Center Radio.

[00:59] SPEAKER_01:

Thank you so much.

[01:00] SPEAKER_02:

Thanks so much. Well, let's talk first about what micro-credentials are. We've been hearing about them for a while. There was maybe kind of an initial pop and then an initial fizzle and maybe now some stability in how our profession thinks about and uses micro-credentials. But what's your definition? What's your take on what micro-credentials are?

[01:19] SPEAKER_00:

micro-credentials are essentially performance-based learning tools for educators, opportunities for them to learn about particular skills, document those skills within the context of their own classroom, schools, their working experience, and then sort of reflect on the impact that those skills have had on their pedagogy or their work, particularly focusing on the impact of their students and student outcomes.

[01:42] SPEAKER_01:

And I would add, I think one of the reasons we are such fans of micro-credentials is that they are, as Eric said, they're learning experiences for professionals, but also opportunities for you to document the skills you already have. So we think that they epitomize what we know about how people learn best and really want to emphasize, as Eric said, this is one of the few models for professional learning that we can really trace the impact and the benefits to students.

[02:14] SPEAKER_02:

It's certainly an interesting and different way to think about credentials because, you know, assume all of us are licensed as teachers or principals or have been, mine are probably long expired now. And you both hold, I didn't mention this in the introduction, but you both hold earned doctorates and we have the traditional markers of education as forms of certification. But there's not a single issuing authority for micro-credentials. And you said they're about documenting skill. Let's talk, if we could, a little bit about that validation of skill. Why is it so important for educators to be able to assess their skills and have that recognition through a micro-credential?

[02:52] SPEAKER_01:

You're right. We have existing systems of licensure and regulation where the way that you earn a certificate or a license to teach or a certificate in leadership is to tally up points or hours or courses on a transcript, which don't really translate directly into what you can do when you're in a school and what your impact on students is. So we could think about skills for teachers that are fairly ubiquitous and basic, like, for example, questioning skills, higher level questioning skills, developing classroom routines. I think we could think of a whole set of skills that are kind of applicable to every teacher across K-12 and maybe even specifically beginning teachers, especially important for beginning teachers.

[03:43]

There are also skills that you would maybe associate more with a master teacher that can be assessed through micro-credentials. And we're beginning to look at micro-credentials for leaders as well. So for example, what are the specific competencies or proficiencies that indicate effective leadership for innovation is an area that I'm interested in right now, and really defining those skills and then developing micro-credentials around those. I'm guessing, Eric, as a teacher educator, you have lots more ideas about those classroom kinds of micro-credentials.

[04:17] SPEAKER_00:

Well, all of our courses that we teach here, James Madison, the College of Education, are built backwards from intended learning outcomes, right? So big ideas, knowledge, skills within each class that students should develop. And I think any of those skills can be taken and turned into a micro-credential, right? And so whether it's being able to design quality performance tasks, whether it's integrating social-emotional learning into your classroom, whether it's building classroom community, using formative assessment, responding to formative assessment, there's a variety of research-based best practices in education that can be turned into micro-credentials to document evidence of development or learning of that skill and evidence of impact on students. And each micro-credential comes with a reflective component, which fits really nicely with our goal, which is to develop reflective practitioners in the classroom. And so ideally we'd get to a point where we wouldn't need micro-credentials, right?

[05:10]

Where educators would just be consistently reflecting on their practices, implementing skills, finding resources to help them develop those skills and then reflecting on what that looks like. But what we do is create kind of a structured pathway. And so there's individual micro-credentials that focus on skills. And then we have stacks of micro-credentials, which are related to a broader topic or larger skills. And so you might have a formative assessment micro-credential. And underneath that, we have working backward and identifying learning goals, designing formative assessments.

[05:37]

implementing and responding to formative assessment, providing feedback. Those all might be sub-skills related to that larger stack of micro-credentials. And so there's a lot of flexibility with how these are used. And so we're kind of taking much of what we value in these traditional education teacher preparation programs and kind of creating these pathways where educators can work on those skills, show evidence of those skills within the context of their work.

[06:02] SPEAKER_02:

I'm glad you got right into talking about teacher preparation and certainly much of that applies to leadership preparation as well, because traditionally we have and I think our profession has done a good job of staying ahead of that traditional practice of granting credit based on completion of courses and granting licensure based on completion of courses. which may or may not very effectively measure skills, may not do a very good job of really assessing the things that we care about. So we know when people complete a degree, we know when people earn a state license, but we don't necessarily know what they're good at unless we have something in place like what you're talking about. So certainly, I can see the potential in the teacher preparation and leadership preparation worlds. Talk to us, if you could, about the potential for districts, because from the district perspective, you have candidates coming from a wide variety of teacher education programs, or as is the case in many places and more and more in the past couple of years, no preparation whatsoever.

[07:00]

We're often having to hire people with very minimal educational training and backgrounds. I What can districts do to use micro-credentials to both assess candidates' abilities, their skills, and to grow the educators that they hire?

[07:17] SPEAKER_00:

Both of those work hand in hand, right? I think what it comes down to, and we talk about this some in the book, is that districts usually have some type of mission or vision. mission statement or vision for the district of what a profile of a graduate is or what creating future ready learners and things like that. And what micro-credentials help us do is really to operationalize what we mean by that, right? And so if we have future ready learners, what does that look like in our classroom and what skills do we want those educators to have? And so those district mission statements and visions can really help us create an idea for what we want our teachers to develop and the skills we want them to work on.

[07:51]

And so whether that's teachers that are more extensive preparation getting into the classroom or whether it's less preparation, it's helpful to have everybody sort of like pulling the rope in the same direction, right? And so if we know that within our district, here are some issues we have, or we're looking at our data, and here are some things that we're looking to improve upon, then creating microcredentials or using microcredentials, adopting a set of microcredentials based on those particular needs or those goals can help ensure that there's a common mission or common vision within the district about what competencies and skills we're looking for our teachers to both have and then develop over the course of their time in the classroom.

[08:27] SPEAKER_01:

And I think just to add to that, one of the things that we appreciate about micro-credentials is that there are as many sort of entry points into the process as there are teachers. So if a district, as Eric has described, has a particular goal or initiative or vision and a set of skills, competencies associated with that, you know that you're going to have teachers who are going to be along a broad continuum with those skills. Some people who are already masterful and can document that mastery right away because it's something they already do and are good at. And perhaps other teachers who have a lot of learning and development to do in order to earn that micro-credential. And a well-designed micro-credential accommodates both of those. So instead of having those two teachers, one with a very high level skill and one who may be a novice, sitting together for six hours in the same workshop, learning the same stuff, but not needing the same stuff, a micro-credential can offer the opportunity for people to enter at the point where they are and complete in whatever time it takes for them to complete.

[09:34] SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, and certainly, you know, as educators, we can appreciate the value of not having everybody go through the same experience if what they need is not the same. We've all been to PD that covered things that we already knew that we did not need to focus on. And not to say that other people didn't need to focus on it, but, you know, the real need for differentiation, I think, is acutely felt there. by everyone who sat through a mandatory workshop that they really didn't get much out of. Let's talk, if we could, about the idea of validating the learning and the idea of it being a credential. And talk, if we could, about the issuer of the credential, because I feel like this is a tricky issue, maybe not so much for districts that just want to do everything in-house.

[10:13]

But if we're talking about proving skills across organizational boundaries, it's not a training that people in my district put on. How can we think about the credential aspect of that? Who are some of the issuers of credentials if they're not issued in-house by the district? And how can we know how to trust them? Because I think one of the things that we became a little bit skeptical about as a result of some scandals in higher education and the for-profit university world, especially when it comes to, quote unquote, getting credit for things you already know, There's definitely potential for abuse. There's potential for credential inflation, for these things to be given out like candy and not really meaningful.

[10:48]

So what's the landscape like? I mean, honestly, it's been five years or so since I've really looked into it. What is the landscape like right now for issuers of micro-credentials other than school districts?

[10:56] SPEAKER_01:

I can start, and I think Eric will want to add to this, a couple of things that come to mind. One is I don't think there is a standard issuer. There are school districts who are designing and issuing their own micro-credentials. There are nonprofits. There are professional associations like Virginia ASCD. that house and assess and issue a range of microcredentials.

[11:18]

So because we weren't able to fix that nationally, what we did instead in the book was outline the characteristics of what we believe is a high-quality microcredential and provide some guidance for schools or school districts or institutions of higher education to guide their selection of microcredentials so that regardless of who the issuer is, they have some assurance of its quality. And then, of course, on the other end of that, there's the question of who assesses that micro-credential before it's awarded. We have talked quite a bit and talk in the book a little bit about the assessment process, how external assessors are chosen and trained and checked for reliability so that if you can, on the front end, assure yourself that the micro-credential itself is solid.

[12:09]

And then on the back end, assure yourself that the assessment is valid and reliable. Then we think you've got a pretty good formula, no matter who the issuer is.

[12:19] SPEAKER_00:

In terms of quality and ensuring that, it's a similar kind of path you think of with designing just performance tasks or project-based learning for students. If it's not done the right way, it can certainly go off the rails. And I think There's some criteria, like Lori said, that we feel like are really important to have for a micro-credential to be rigorous and to be high quality. And so just like a district, we want to make sure that their teachers were implementing high quality project-based learning or performance tasks or those open-ended assessments. It's the same kind of deal with micro-credentials that needs some oversight and some understanding about what we're implementing and making sure that they have the elements of high quality that we would consider and are rigorous and personalized and contextual for the teachers that are completing them.

[13:00] SPEAKER_02:

I can imagine that on a regional basis, as different kind of regional players issue micro-credentials, they start to develop their own reputation. If a university has a micro-credentialing program, as people hire candidates who've been through that program, compare their skills to what the credentials say, that does a lot of the heavy lifting and in terms of validating those abilities. Let's talk, if we could, about districts that want to implement something like this in-house. I know you have quite a bit in the book about precisely how to do that, how to develop a micro-credential system, and what to think about, what to focus on. Maybe let's start at kind of the 40,000-foot level, thinking about why would we want to do this, what would it look like, and kind of where should we focus to get started?

[13:41] SPEAKER_00:

So first and foremost, what we found with the work we've done with districts and kind of talking to districts, we interviewed a few for the book, some of the work that they're doing. First of all, you have to have the capacity within your district, right, to be able to design these. It takes time. It takes effort, investment on the part of the designers and the part of the district to get these off the ground. And so because of that, I think a district needs to take first and foremost a look at their resources and what they have available. And so if they have the resources available to do these in-house, awesome, because then you can really make sure that they are more tightly aligned with your goals and your expectations and your hopes for your teachers.

[14:14]

But once that decision has been made, the big thing is first and foremost to make sure that you're thinking critically about what your teachers should be working on and seeking to develop. And, you know, there's some districts who will do sort of a, more hodgepodge approach where there's a lot of different things that educators can choose from. And then sometimes there's a specific sequence that districts will say, you need to do these two or three micro-credentials or this one micro-credential that we're offering you. And you have to do this in the next two years because we want everybody in our district to have this particular credential. And so once we start with that kind of, can we do this in-house and then make that decision to start it, you're really kind of thinking about what we want to offer and not just going into it with kind of an approach where we're just going to let people design whatever they want to, but rather Thinking critically about what educators need and then what we can offer those educators in terms of the skills that they can develop. And so once we have those topics identified, then it's working backward from skills, making sure those skills are rigorous and worthy of micro-credentials.

[15:09]

Just like with, again, performance tasks or project-based learning with students, these are meant to be assessing rigor and the ability to put wheels on your learning, right? To apply it in a way that you haven't before within your classroom, potentially. And so making sure that we have that rigor there, then continuing to work backward from that and developing rubrics that are very clear and designed around the specific learning outcomes we're looking for. And I'll let Lori talk about it. I know she's been a lot more involved with the assessing part, and I think that's probably the next big piece to this.

[15:36] SPEAKER_01:

Well, I think when micro-credentials are being designed and assessed internally within a school or within a district, it's even more important to just apply the principles of reliability so that people are clearly getting the kind of feedback that's helpful and objective and very evidence-based. And also just making sure that transfers to students. They should be getting feedback that both tells them whether or not they've met the criteria for gaining the micro-credential or earning the micro-credential, but also helps them, as Eric said earlier, to kind of reflect on their practice as they go forward. So in terms of finding assessors and building an assessment system for this within a district, we apply the same kinds of calibration processes and training and multiple practice sessions and check-ins and reliability checks that we would with any district.

[16:35]

high-stakes performance assessment. That's not to say that it can't be done within a district. It is to say that those assessors need to be assigned to teachers fairly carefully. It's better if it's not somebody you know whose work you're assessing. And then we put a fairly straightforward but tight process in place for continuing to check the reliability of that feedback.

[16:58] SPEAKER_02:

Well, I wonder if we could wrap up by just talking about some examples. So, Eric and Laurie, thinking about the programs and the districts that you've worked with, what have been some of the areas of practice or the skills that you've seen successful micro-credentials developed? for? Because certainly we want to go beyond attended a training on X, like there are certain characteristics that make something a good skill, and it may be difficult for our listeners to kind of envision what some of those would be. So what are some of your favorite examples from the micro-credential work you've done?

[17:30] SPEAKER_01:

My current favorite example is something that's kind of in progress now. It isn't done yet, but I'm excited about it. And that is the some work that I'm doing with the organization, What School Could Be, to develop micro-credentials for leaders of innovative practice. So we're looking at school leadership and thinking about if you want to implement an innovative practice in your school or an innovative approach to schooling, what are the specific special things about leadership that apply in that situation that's different from a really good plain old school leader, you know, maybe somebody who's very effective, but not so good at pulling together resources and people and enthusiasm and commitment to innovation. So I'm pretty excited about that project. Eric, you may want to talk about some of the things we have looked at with teacher micro-credentials.

[18:23] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I mean, the example I always love that we talk about in the book pretty extensively is a school district here in Central Virginia where Lori and I live. And districts sort of started with an equity audit. And then from that equity audit, they determined that they had some significant gaps regarding students of color and their performance in the district and wanted to take some steps to solve that. And so because of that, what they did was to develop a lot of work around culturally responsive teaching and specifically thinking about micro-credential and culturally responsive teaching and equitable grading practices. And so the district kind of had a statement that they put out and the work that they did on those micro-credentials was kind of working backward from that statement about pushing equity within the district. So those micro-credentials are at this point, I think, required of every single educator to complete micro-credential and culturally responsive teaching in an effort to really make sure that there's a lot of sensitivity within the district to supporting all students in the classrooms.

[19:17]

And so it's a nice example because it's very much, we have a vision for what we want our educators to be. Here are the skills we'd like to identify, and they laid out some specific skills related to equitable grading, culturally responsive teaching, and then working backward from that to be able to identify specific micro-credentials that the educators would complete to do that. And so, in a sense, that's a nice vision of how it can work when we really have an idea for what we want everybody to be doing within a school district.

[19:42] SPEAKER_02:

And I know you talk in the book quite a bit about aligning with district goals and priorities to develop those credentials. So the book is Building Educator Capacity Through Micro-Credentials, published by ASCD. Dr. Eric Carbaugh and Dr. Lori McCullough, thank you so much for joining me on Principal Center Radio. It's been a pleasure.

[19:59] SPEAKER_00:

Thanks, Justin.

[20:00] SPEAKER_02:

Thank you for having us.

[20:01] Announcer:

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