K-12 educators and admins to earn university professional development units with badge and micro-badge courses
Under a new partnership, PD Learning Network (PDLN) and University of the Pacific’s Center for Professional and Continuing Education (CPCE) will let K-12 educators earn university professional development units for skills they develop post-degree.
This partnership is one of the first to offer educators credit from a university in conjunction with professional learning aligned to competency-based micro credentialing.
“We feel privileged to enter into this partnership to offer educators more opportunities for recognition of their professional growth,” said Jennifer Gibson, CEO and co-founder of PDLN [1]. “University of the Pacific’s CPCE is a natural match for educator micro-credentialing because of its emphasis on learners setting their own educational goals and their interest in credentialing educators in this rapidly changing environment.”
According to PDLN, the open badging movement has suffered from something of an image problem. Namely, there’s been little recognition of badges as legitimate markers of educator professional mastery at the school/district/state level, which discourages educators from pursuing them.
With the PDLN-CPCE partnership, educators follow learning pathways and demonstrate competency through assessments that are evaluated and peer-reviewed by credentialed curriculum experts against a rigorous, standards- and research-based rubric to earn micro-credential badges and university credit.
This third-party evaluation is how the PD Learning Network team assigns value and validation to the badge or micro credential, making it meaningful for both educators and administrators alike, which translates into higher rates of pay and acceptance in traditional avenues of professional recognition and advancement.
PDLN will offer more than 10 full badge courses [2] that are eligible for graduate-level professional development credit through the University of the Pacific partnership; along with more than 50 micro-badge courses with narrower focus and a lower time commitment that can be developed into future credit offerings.