Continuing Work on Your Micro-credentials In Online Settings or During Periods of Time Without Access to Students and/or Colleagues

Completing and earning micro-credentials requires you to demonstrate competency via a portfolio of evidence, often collected via classroom practice.

Current circumstances and school closures may make it difficult to collect certain types of evidence, and we have compiled this guide to help support your work. It’s still possible to work on portions of your micro-credentials during periods of time when you lack access to students (winter, spring, and summer break, for example) or when you are working with students in an online/remote setting. In some cases, you might be able to complete the entire micro-credential.

Below please find some practical actions you can take during such periods of time.

Getting Started: This is a great time to get organized and backwards plan. Here are actions you can take to get started.

• Familiarize yourself with the BloomBoard platform and other helpful resources. Log in to your BloomBoard account and familiarize yourself with the platform, including the Discussion boards.
  
  
• Get organized. Read through all of the micro-credentials in the series. Carefully review the requirements and rubrics and make a checklist of the evidence you will need to collect.
  
  
• Be creative. Many micro-credentials can be completed in an online environment. Consider the required evidence and think about virtual parallels to your classroom or meetings (if applicable and available).
  
  
• Backwards plan. Once you’ve read through the micro-credentials, set goals for completion. Create a timeline for yourself.

Completing Micro-credential Requirements: Each micro-credential has four or five requirements: Analyze, Design and/or Develop, Implement, and Evaluate.

• Analyze: The Analyze requirement usually requires completing a graphic organizer or writing an analysis of your current practice. You should be able to complete the Analyze requirement without access to students and/or colleagues. You may need to have access to data (student work, grades, past lessons, observation notes, etc.) from the past to review. If you are analyzing a practice you have normally completed in a face-to-face learning environment but now plan to implement the practice in an online environment, be sure to note this in your analysis.
  
  
• Design and Develop: You can complete the Design and Develop requirements for most micro-credentials without needing access to students and/or colleagues. These requirements will most likely require you to create a plan based on improving the practice you analyzed in the prior requirement. If you will be implementing your plan in an online environment, it will be important for you to include how you will do this online (asynchronously in a Learning Management System (LMS), via email, in a synchronous session, etc.). Be sure to read the rubrics carefully in these requirements to ensure your plan addresses everything in both the requirement and the rubric. It will be important to note potential barriers to implementing your plan in an online environment if remote teaching/leading is new to you and your students. 
  
  
• Implement: The Implement requirement can be completed online, via future implementation when you return to your face-to-face environment, or by leveraging evidence you may have already collected from a previous implementation. If you will have access to students and/or colleagues and you are not changing the original intent of the micro-credential (classroom management skills in a face-to-face classroom environment look very different in an online environment), you can implement your plan virtually.
  
  Ensure both you and your students/colleagues will have access to the online tools you plan to use, have practiced using them so they do not get in the way of you demonstrating the competency, and they will allow you to collect the required evidence. You must submit all evidence that is required in Implement (ie. if it asks for a video, participants must be in the video and an audio recording cannot be substituted unless the requirement lists audio as an option). Remember that competencies measured in micro-credentials may need to be practiced and developed over time in order to capture artifacts that meet the established criteria (this includes competencies demonstrated in an online or virtual setting).  You may need to attempt the competency a number of times before you produce evidence that you want to submit as your artifacts.
  
  • Ideas for implementing if you only have asynchronous, not together in real-time, tools:
    
    • Write out the lesson in a learning management system (LMS) like Google Classroom, Canvas, Blackboard, etc. or record yourself teaching the lesson and provide directions for students to upload their assignment or email it to you.
      
    • Collect student work or other evidence in a discussion board or chat tool. (within your LMS, Basecamp, texting, Slack, Chat, etc.)
      
    • Email an assignment (recording of yourself with directions) to students and have students email you their work in return.
      
  • Ideas for implementing if you only have synchronous, real-time, tools:
    
    • Teach a live lesson or conduct a live meeting with your students and/or colleagues in tools such as Zoom, Teams, Google Hangouts, Skype, Facetime, etc. Be sure to ensure you have permission to record the session (if you have permission to record students in your face-to-face classroom, you should be ok to record them online, see question below).
      
    • These synchronous sessions are new for most people. Set new expectations and norms at the beginning of each session to allow everyone to participate.
      
    • Read the rubric requirements to ensure you are able to demonstrate and collect the required evidence for the Implement requirement in your live lesson/meeting.
      
      
• Evaluate: Once you’ve completed the other requirements, you can complete the Evaluate requirement without needing access to students and/or colleagues or additional online learning tools.
  
  
• Work on more than one micro-credential at a time. You can work on more than one micro-credential at a time. The platform allows you to save your work so you can toggle between micro-credentials.
  
  
• Chat and Video Conferencing: Consider using tools/resources like Google Hangouts or Zoom to connect and collaborate with other educators. You can also connect with students and capture evidence for your micro-credentials in virtual classroom settings (if applicable or available). Always be sure to ask permission before starting a recording and adhere to FERPA and your school or district’s student privacy rules. Please refer to your district or state department of education website or contact them directly to learn more about your area’s legal policies and practices around video. When implementing policies that include minors, audio and/or video recordings, and the Internet, you should always consult with your district’s legal team.
   

Click to view Frequently Asked Questions regarding Continuing Work on Your Micro-credentials In Online Settings or During Periods of Time Without Access to Students and/or Colleagues.