You already have teaching expertise, and you are continually learning and adding to your teaching skills. Now you have the opportunity to demonstrate your skills and receive recognition for your proficiency by earning micro-credentials.
How do I earn a micro-credential?
- Choose one of the micro-credentials we offer. It could be a skill you’d like to learn or a skill you already have. Right now, we offer 19 micro-credentials, 12 for principals and seven for teachers.
- Research the skill using the article or video suggestions given on the MLC website. Or perhaps you’ve already completed a webinar or course in that skill, so your research is basically complete.
- Practice the skill at your own pace, in your own classroom.
- Register for the micro-credential. The cost is $50.
- Submit evidence of your competency in this skill. The required evidence might be a lesson plan, lesson video, written reflection, or other document.
- Wait while MLC professors evaluate your evidence using the rubric, which is also available to you on the website.
- Receive verification of your micro-credential, which comes in the form of a digital badge from MLC.
- Share your digital badge on your curriculum vitae, your signature, your school website, and your own social media platforms.
What are micro-credentials?
Micro-credentials provide formal recognition for a teacher’s informal learning. They signify that the teacher has mastered a specific, bite-sized teaching skill, such as developing background or quick formative assessment.
Very simply, teachers choose a skill, submit evidence they’ve mastered the skill, and then receive a digital badge once the authorizing agency approves the evidence
Who awards micro-credentials?
Every year, more and more organizations award micro-credentials for skill competencies, including distinguished universities like Harvard, Berkeley, MIT—and now Martin Luther College.
Why would I pursue micro-credentials?
For the same reasons you’d take courses or attend workshops or complete webinars. Because you want to grow professionally. Because you want to be the best educator you can be. The difference is that micro-credentials certify that you can perform small and specific professional skills that are tied to the Commission on Lutheran School’s Ministerial Growth and Evaluation Process.
How do micro-credentials fit into the WELS Ministry Growth and Evaluation Process (MGEP) and my Ministry Development Plan?
The micro-credentials we now offer are precisely the MGEP skills the Commission on Lutheran Schools desires teachers and principals to master. As you earn micro-credentials, you can include them in your Ministry Development Plan, just as you include credits and clock hours. In fact, many people find that micro-credentials mean even more than credits or clock hours because they measure actual competencies, not just seat time or the completion of papers.
What can others learn from my digital badges?
When posted online, your digital badge can be opened up by others—parents, administrators, colleagues—and they can see what institution awarded it to you and the requirements you fulfilled to earn it. In this way, a digital badge provides much more information than a transcript.
How can our entire faculty collaborate in earning micro-credentials?
A faculty can choose one or several micro-credentials to pursue together. They can do the research together, visit each other’s classrooms to observe, and discuss successes and failures at meetings and even recess. Each teacher will then submit their own evidence individually to earn the micro-credentials.
Job-embedded learning is learning that sticks. When an entire faculty collaborates in job-embedded learning to earn micro-credentials, then professional growth rises to yet another level.
And what a great demonstration of faithfulness to share with your parents! Imagine posting on your school website and Facebook page, “All our faculty members have earned the Macro-Credential in Learning-Focused Instruction.”
Micro-Credentials for Faculty Growth: Cost-Effective and User-Friendly
Active Engagement
at St. Paul-Columbus OH
At St. Paul-Columbus OH, Principal Charles Galecki and the faculty have focused their professional growth on pursuit of the Active Engagement micro-credential.
They devoted three monthly professional learning community (PLC) meetings towards the goal. The first week they explored the micro-credentials and chose Active Engagement and the book they would research on the topic. (MLC provides a list of resources to use, as well as videos to provide context. See Learning-Focused Instruction Macro-Credential video.) The second month, they shared book talks with each other and then listed the Active Engagement techniques they’d use in their video evidence. The third month, they uploaded their videos and reflected on the process.
