Promising Practices for Teaching Hybrid Micro-Credentials
Channel: eCampusOntario
Date: 16/12/2021

Promising Practices for Teaching Hybrid Micro-Credentials / Pratiques prometteuses pour l’enseignement des micro-titres de compétences hybrids

Presented by:

Elan Paulson
Teaching and Learning Consultant, Conestoga College

Nancy Nelson
Professor, Academic Coordinator, Conestoga College

The pandemic crisis has required post-secondary institutions to adopt and adapt to more flexible models of education. Some institutions have developed standardized frameworks to guide decision-making and developmental planning for a specific definition of hybrid; others have allowed faculties, departments, and schools freer exploration of various synchronous and asynchronous course models to achieve learning outcomes (Horizon Report, 2021). To maintain academic quality but also meet shifting needs for safety and access as the crisis continues, hybrid programs and courses offers new possibilities in the coming months and years.

Like hybrid, micro-credentials are shaping the future of postsecondary teaching and learning (Horizon Report, 2021). Micro-credentials have been described and differentiated from traditional degree and certificate programs in national and provincial micro-credential frameworks and standards (Government of Ontario, 2021). While definitions vary, in general micro-credentials are short and practical programs of learning that are competency-based, personalized, and on-demand. The value of micro-credentialing lies in its responsiveness to changing workforce that now requires continuous upskilling and re-skilling (Pichette et al., 2020). The flexibility of hybrid fits the short, just-in-time approach of micro-credentials, particularly when it comes to meeting the various needs of learners who are entering, re-entering, or remaining within their industries as they study. 

While there are now more resources that describe what micro-credentials are, less attention has been paid to the practical academic work of developing or re-designing courses in micro-credential format. This 30-minute workshop seeks to discuss: What are the unique features of hybrid micro-credential courses that shape teaching and learning? How can educators plan to develop flexible, accessible, and efficient hybrid micro-credentials?

This session will achieve the following goals:

a) Describe key features of hybrid micro-credentials for learning and for learners

b) Support structured, reflective planning for developing hybrid micro-credentials

Facilitators will introduce the session by describing key features of hybrid micro-credentials, as well as the implications of those features for developing courses. Attendees will then collaboratively apply a structured, evidence-based planning tool to create a short, co-authored hybrid micro-credential course (Nelson, & Brennan, 2021). Facilitators will share stories of planning successes (and failures) and encourage attendees to share their own experiences.

This session will benefit those who administer, design, teach, plan to teach, or support those who teach micro-credentials in any hybrid format. The planning tool used during the session can also be used by those developing full courses for hybrid delivery. Attendees will gain collective knowledge about planning hybrid micro-credentials through a shared experience planning a micro-credential course. They will leave with an explanation of, experience with, and resources related to a structured, evidence-based micro-credential planning tool that can be applied and easily adapted to a range of different institutional and program contexts.