Take Small Bites and Chew Slowly: The Benefits of Microcredentials Have you heard about microcredentials? It’s a new approach to professional development in a smaller, focused format. ______________________________________________________________ How does microcredentials work? Professionals complete a discrete, competency-based task. The organization offering microcredentials can then issue badges, continuing education credits, or other verification of completion. What might this process look like in practice? Let’s say a K12 school district typically offers face-to-face courses for teachers’ professional development. Teachers sign on and attend a number of hours of training and are then awarded continuing professional development, or CPD, credit for participating in those workshop trainings. If that same K12 school district redesigned the learning using the microcredentialing approach, several components would change, including: ● The time unit would be smaller. It’s easier for busy educators to fit a 15- or 30-minute professional development session into their busy schedules. ● The learning experience is skill based and related to on-the-job tasks. Putting literacy groups into action! ● Teachers participate in a round-robin of 15-minute classroom observations watching a [...]