5 How Micro-credentials Can Unlock Success for Learners
Why are Micro-credentials Valuable?
Through earning a micro-credential, learners can quickly gain recognition for reskilling and upskilling. A micro-credential provides the learner with recognition opportunities to showcase their growing expertise or expand into a new area of interest. It can lead to licensure, recertification, salary bumps, or bonuses. Micro-credentials provide affordability, flexibility, and personalization compared to macro-credentials like degrees. Pursuing a degree is more timely, costly, and less specific than micro-credentials. They are favored by historically and systematically excluded learners who find it challenging to commit to the financial and time requirements of higher education pathways. This allows micro-credentials to close the gap.
Micro-credentials “attest to specific learning outcomes that might be lost in a degree or degree transcript,” making the educational experience more relevant and efficient (Milligan & Kennedy, 2017). This unbundling of higher education pathways into micro-units of learning creates granular accomplishments that are motivational and encouraging to learners (Pirkkalainen et al., 2022). Hence, earning a micro-credential is a valuable opportunity for learning and professional growth.
Micro-credentials have been an excellent way to ensure that I am developing teaching practices that are exactly what I am looking for.
– Alisha, Technology Integration Specialist
(Franklin, 2022)
Micro-credentials in Action: Examples of Designed for Educators
Two examples of micro-credential issuers, for educators, are Childhood Education International and International Baccalaureate.
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In Childhood Education International‘s Social and Emotional Learning and Psychosocial Support for Quality and Holistic Learning Micro-credential, the learner (an educator) recognizes the role of social and emotional learning (SEL) and psychosocial support (PSS) in their classroom and can adapt existing SEL/PSS tools to meet the unique needs of their learners and their educational context. |
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In International Baccalaureate‘s Design an Analytic Rubric for Formative Assessment in Collaboration with Students Micro-credential, the learner (an educator) designs an analytic rubric for formative assessment in collaboration with students. |
How and Where Do You Put Micro-credentials on a Resume?
Earning a micro-credential is a career accomplishment, and it can be included on a resume or shared on online platforms like LinkedIn. This allows current and potential employers to view the learner’s complete picture of their skills or competencies and what they bring to the organization. The employer can view and understand the micro-credential’s requirements, the assessment completed, and the evidence submitted.
Following the standard resume format, micro-credentials can be listed by date earned in either the Licenses and Certificates section or the Education section. Including information about the micro-credential, like the issuer’s information and title is essential.
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Does Including Micro-credentials on Your Resume Help?
Earning a micro-credential is an asset to an individual’s well-being, agency, and economic security. Micro-credentials “play a key role in displaying specific marketable skill sets to employers” (Janckenko & Rodi, 2019, p. 22). They help bridge gaps in an individual’s journey, verifying the attainment of specific skills or set of skills they need to be successful. Micro-credentials help learners who have higher education degrees, as well as those who do not. Earning a micro-credential shows that the individual is learning and improving themselves professionally.
A number of different educational institutions, companies, and organizations offer micro-credentials. A prospective earner should consider and review who the issuer is, paying attention to what the micro-credential entails and what past earners have to say. Typically, micro-credentials associated with a higher education institution are better vetted than ones without an affiliation (Post University, 2022). 1EdTech’s TrustEd Micro-credential Framework is built on the Open Badges criteria and defines a set of minimum recommended requirements to ensure quality in micro-credentials.
Displaying micro-credentials on a resume or LinkedIn allows a prospective employer to view the complete picture of the learner through their verified achievements. A learner can use micro-credentials to demonstrate the attainment of skills they need to upskill or reskill, which allows them to close the gap between their existing certificates, diplomas, and degrees, as well as expand to new areas. Because micro-credentials recognize micro-units of achievement, the array of options encourages lifelong learning.
- Through their affordability, flexibility, and personalization, micro-credentials enable learners to build on their expertise or expand into a new area of interest.
- Micro-credentials help bridge gaps in an individual’s learning journey through the verification of skills.
- Micro-credentials are closing the gap of historically and systematically excluded learners who find it challenging to commit to the financial and time requirements of higher education pathways.
