Personalized Learning through Micro-Credentials with Anne Reed

In this episode, I talk with Anne Reed, director of micro-credentials at the University of Buffalo. Her office oversees over one hundred different micro-credentials that can be earned by University of Buffalo students. Micro-credentials at Buffalo are learning experiences that are larger than a course but smaller than a minor that students can use to differentiate themselves on the job market by making clear the workforce relevant knowledge and skills they’ve gained.

Anne and I had a fascinating conversation about micro-credentials at the University of Buffalo, how they’re structured and aligned with workforce needs, the roles faculty play in them, and why students pursue them. She also taught me how to create my own micro-credential, an "Outstanding Podcast Guest" badge that I awarded to Anne!

Episode Resources:

·       Office of Micro-Credentials at Buffalo, https://www.buffalo.edu/micro-credentials.html 

·       University of Buffalo’s badges, https://www.credly.com/organizations/university-at-buffalo/badges 

·       Anne Reed on LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/anne-reed/ 

·       Anne’s “Outstanding Podcast Guest” badge, https://badgelist.com/Intentional-Teaching/Outstanding-Podcast-Guest/u/anne_reed 

·       Badge List, https://badgelist.com/ 

·       National Association of Colleges and Employers, https://www.naceweb.org/ 

·       O*NET, https://www.onetonline.org/ 

·       “The New Learning Economy” white paper by Jeff Selingo, https://info.cengage.com/learning-economy_wp_2738580

·       Texas Credentials for the Future, https://www.utsystem.edu/sites/texas-microcredentials 

Transcript

Derek Bruff 0:07
Welcome to the Intentional Teaching, a podcast aimed at educators to help them develop foundational teaching skills and explore new ideas in teaching. I’m your host, Derek Bruff. I hope this podcast helps you be more intentional in how you teach and in how you develop as a teacher over time.

Jeff Selingo, author of Who Gets In and Why: A Year Inside College Admissions, among other books, recently authored a white paper about what he calls the “new learning economy.” He notes a lack of alignment between the traditional four-year undergraduate degree and the labor market, which has seen dramatic changes in the skills, especially technology skills, needed by new hires over the last five years. He writes, “What’s clear is that students in the future will require a mix of the liberal arts and the practical arts.”

This episode of Intentional Teaching is the first of two episodes exploring ways that colleges and universities might adapt to this changing landscape. In this episode, I talk with Anne Reed, director of micro-credentials at the University of Buffalo. Her office oversees over one hundred different micro-credentials that can be earned by University of Buffalo students. These micro-credentials are a response to one of the problems that Jeff Selingo notes in his white paper: “Part of the problem is that critical skills are often embedded in degrees—but employers and students themselves don’t know they might have learned these skills somewhere in college, including in co-curricular activities.” Micro-credentials at Buffalo are learning experiences that are larger than a course but smaller than a minor that students can use to differentiate themselves on the job market by making clear the workforce relevant knowledge and skills they’ve gained.

I learned about Anne and her work through UPCEA, the online and professional education association. If you’ve listened through the end of recent episodes of the podcast, you’ll know that UPCEA is a sponsor of the Intentional Teaching podcast. One thing that means is that UPCEA recommends guests for the podcast on a regular basis, and Anne Reed was on the first list they sent over. Anne co-chairs the UPCEA council for credential innovation, which supports higher education leaders as they seek to advance and develop quality non-degree or alternative credentials. Anne and I had a fascinating conversation about micro-credentials at the University of Buffalo, how they’re structured and aligned with workforce needs, the roles faculty play in them, and why students pursue them. 

And stay tuned after my interview with Anne to hear about my experiences creating a very simple micro-credential using the platform Badge List, an “Outstanding Podcast Guest” badge that I awarded to Anne!

Welcome, Anne. Glad to have you on the podcast. 

Anne Reed 2:58
Hi. Thanks. It's great to be here. 

Derek Bruff 3:00
Yeah, I'm excited to talk to you. And so let's talk about micro credentials and then you can tell us a little bit about kind of how you got into this, this job. But let's start big picture. What what what is a micro credential as a general idea? And then what are micro credentials at the University of Buffalo? 

Anne Reed 3:18
You know, so micro credentials as a general idea are pretty literally they are, you know, small credentials and small in terms of the time to completion. They're short in terms of time to completion and also small in terms of the granularity of the subject matter. So whereas other credentials like a degree, you know, they're very broad in terms of the range of knowledge and skills that are gained. And a micro credential is very specific in terms of the knowledge and skills that are gained upon completion of a micro credential as a program. So I always think about micro credential in terms of being a learning program and then what's earned upon completion of that program is typically a digital credential, oftentimes a digital badge. And so they're small and they're digital. And that's those are kind of what I see as the two distinguishing features of micro credentials.

And at UB we kind of go one step further and say that they're small program teams with a strong focus on workforce relevancy and they result in a digital credential. So in terms of size at the University of Buffalo, we offer both credit bearing and non-credit bearing micro credentials. So in terms of credit bearing, they won't be any larger than 11 credits because 12, 15, something like that could be considered academic certificate. And so they're smaller than that. So there's also non-credit micro credentials. So there could be zero credit. We don't measure them in terms of the same sort of measurements we use for traditional credentials like seat time or the Carnegie unit. So the sort of distinctions are a little bit less clear when it comes to micro credentials because we measure them in terms of the competencies that are gained. So the time it takes to gain those competencies is, you know, how long it would be for to earn the micro credential because they're specific, that time is often quite short. 

Derek Bruff 5:34
Okay. So so let's let's talk about some examples. Right? So yeah, I think most of our listeners would be familiar with an undergraduate major or an undergraduate minor, right? Those are programs composed of multiple courses. Each course has some number of credit units attached to it. And so you have a sense we have that kind of calculus of of size. What what are some micro credentials that you have that have at UB and what are both in terms of topic but also in terms of kind of size, if that makes sense? 

Anne Reed 6:06
Yeah, that makes sense. And some sometimes think they might be there might be courses involved in micro credentials, so sometimes they might be specific knowledge and skills in a specialized area. So for example, Global Health Pharmacy is a micro credential within the pharmacy school. And so people who are pursuing degrees in pharmacy could sort of specialize in this area of, you know, global health related issues and things like that. So in that case, there's... I think it's easy to understand what that type of micro credential is, because we're still using the language of courses, right, and discipline-specific knowledge and skills. But there's also micro credentials that are not related to coursework, right? Because we know there's so much learning that happens outside of that academic courses. 

Derek Bruff 7:11
So before we go there, so like the global health, that micro credential, is it based entirely on courses? It's just a certain number or a certain set of courses that students take? 

Anne Reed 7:22
Well, it's not based entirely on courses because we at the University of Buffalo, we never offer micro credentials that are just coursework. We don't want students to sort of stumble upon a micro credential. I just happened to take these two courses, so look at a micro credential showed up in my email and on my transcript. We want them to be very, very much something that the student seeks out and wants to pursue because they're supposed to be aligned with their sort of personalized learning goals, right, or professional goals. And so they have to enroll in it. 

And then there is always an additional component if they're non-credit that's above and beyond coursework. And that's essentially a requirement to ensure that these are not so, not simply I don't want to use the term simply because academia is not simple, but they're not entirely academic. There's always something that's very workforce relevant about them. So we want them to gain skills that are needed in the workforce in ways that are authentic to the workforce. So for a global health pharmacy, for example, unfortunately I don't remember exactly what they do besides the courses, but I know that there is a component that's experiential and it's not course related. It's it's it's not graded in the sense of earning a grade, but the learners will get feedback on whatever that sort of experiential project is that they complete. Besides the sort of two credit bearing courses. So it's a packaged as a program rather than just a series of courses. 

Derek Bruff 9:08
As opposed to like a minor, which would involve more credits presumably, and also would be just credits probably in most cases, where it's just courses. 

Anne Reed 9:19
Yeah, exactly. And so that's where micro credentials could be really interesting for like, let's say, graduate students who most likely don't have the opportunity to take a minor. 

Derek Bruff 9:32
Yeah. 

Anne Reed 9:33
And also for anyone who wants to gain some additional learning, but maybe, you know, doesn't want to commit to a whole series of academic courses and pay for that series of academic courses. There's typically different costs associated with micro credentials, or even our co-curricular micro credentials at UB are typically free for students so they can gain sort of professional skills or additional skills outside of coursework and at no additional cost to them. 

Derek Bruff 10:09
What are some co-curricular micro credentials that you have? 

Anne Reed 10:13
So let's see, we have quite a bit. I think maybe 40, 30, 40% are are that type of micro credential. Um, co-curricular? Oh, we have a program that's called Engineering intramurals. I'm really excited about. It's, it's a non-credit program and students in engineering, it's actually not only for students in engineering programs, but it's through the school of engineering. The students from other departments too, can collaborate with engineering students, and basically they work together to solve real problems that our employer partners, they indicate, you know, our program coordinator for that program, connects with industry partners, employer partners in the region to see if they have any problems in their workplace that need some creative solutions. And the students work together to solve these problems. And it's kind of like a competition to see by the end of the semester who kind of came up with the best solution. And and so in that case, they're they're solving problems, they're working together, they're documenting their projects, and they're getting some really interesting skills that they wouldn't otherwise have the opportunity to gain. 

Derek Bruff 11:47
I have heard of engineering schools that do things like that that don't necessarily attach any type of credential to that. So where where did the idea of having a micro credential for these types of experiences come at UB? What's the origin of this program? Because you have a lot of them now. 

Anne Reed 12:07
We do. And actually that specific one was actually offered as sort of just a co-curricular experience option for students before we started offering micro credentials. So then when we began offering micro credentials, we put out a call for proposals to faculty and staff. So that was some kind of low hanging fruit, something some kind of learning that's already happening on campus. But there's there wasn't any sort of official way to provide sort of formal recognition to the learners and before it was a micro credential there really, there were less sort of curricular structures built in, you know. For it to become a micro credential the program coordinator had to write out the learning objectives and sort of map out the curriculum and sort of put those sort of structures in place. And because this information needs to go into the digital batch, like it's the metadata, right? So yeah, we have to be very explicit about what the students are learning.

So that was that was our that was a program that was already up. But now that it's a micro credential, we could provide an official UB credential to the students. And there's various ways that digital credentials have value, but I won't jump into that right now, I guess. And, and also there's benefits for lots of benefits for the institution, right? We could do a bit more sort of tracking and we're putting the learners into our student information system, whereas any other co-curricular, it's, you know, much less sort of tracking of the student learning gains and who's taking these programs and things like that.

Yeah, so, so yeah, so how micro credentials, how we started out with micro credentials? So in 2017, 2016, 2017, some sometime around there we had a SUNY... UB is part of the State University of New York system, SUNY. The SUNY chancellor at the time had these sort of big pillars of education that, you know, there's big ideas for our direction, our future direction for SUNY. And one of them was individualized education. And the suggestion was that the SUNY campuses need to do more in terms of offering customized learning experiences for our students. And what that means or meant at the time was a little bit vague. But our our university put together some committees to try to align with the the Chancellor's pillars of education, including individualized education.

The committee, there was a committee that formed for that and and saw that it would potentially be a good fit for UB because at the time we were we had a few different initiatives in place for personalized learning. One was that we invested in an eportfolio system for all of our undergraduates students. We had also been redesigning our general education curriculum to include more pathways for students, and so micro credentials seemed to be aligned with those initiatives. And so the committee suggested that we move forward with micro credentials and recommended that we develop a central office and have a dedicated person.

I was already at UB at the time. I had been working in online learning. My background is instructional design, so I was instructional design faculty development, and I was probably the only one who applied for the job who actually like has experience with digital badges. A long time ago, you know, I had used them in my own teaching as an adjunct. I, you know, I have an interest in gamification, so as a gamification strategy. And I also had used them in some faculty development. So I was excited about the idea. And so I moved over into this role and basically was charged with getting the office up and running. And so we spent about a year in terms of setting up all the sort of processes to be able to offer micro credentials. 

Derek Bruff 16:49
And so we don't have to dive too deep into why these have value. But maybe for... so I've spent a lot more time on LinkedIn over the last year and I think I have a better sense of how these might have value in that kind of space. Folks looking for jobs, looking for for employees, but maybe for some of our faculty out there who who don't visit LinkedIn very, very often, what does the student get that has value and kind of why does it have value? 

Anne Reed 17:19
Okay. So I mean, the digital credential itself does have value because it could be shared in ways that traditional paper-based credentials cannot be shared and not even just paper-based credentials, but large credentials. Right. Even if we had a digital credential for a degree, I mean, there's so much learning and so much evidence of learning and years of of learning and experiences that would be in there. But here is a compact, very specific to a knowledge area or a skill set that's gained. And so let's say someone earns a micro credential, it's issued to them. And then if I issue you, Derek, a micro credential, you will get an email that says, Congratulations, you earned this micro credential. But again, you knew it was coming because you worked so hard to earn it. And so then you accept it and you're immediately prompted to to share it. So if you're an avid LinkedIn user, you just click a button, essentially, and it pushes it out to your LinkedIn. And so it could either be in your LinkedIn profile or you could put it as I don't think they're called stories on LinkedIn. 

Derek Bruff 18:36
But a post of some sort. 

Anne Reed 18:37
Yes. Put it in your post and, you know, showcase your learning. And so that's interesting, right, that these types of credentials, they're not only shared with potential employers, but they're also shared with our social and professional networks. So I feel like that's a shift right in learning is becoming more intertwined with our identities. And but even, you know, degrees, our employer never really asked to see your actual degree. 

So it's so that this is much more dynamic than simply a line item on your resume because somebody can click on it and see what it was that you did to earn it. So the learning objectives, the criteria for earning it, how much time it took to earn it, and then what's most and other other things to, you know, skills tags and things like that. And also the evidence of learning, which is an artifact of learning that showcases what you know and can do as a result of learning the micro credential in a way that there's... I don't know of any other real parallel in terms of educational constructs to evidence that's embedded in a digital credential. I feel like it's a really exciting way for credentials to be personalized to the learner and for the learners learning to be evident. 

Derek Bruff 20:22
So there is a way within the technology to actually link to the evidence of work, right? So depending on how the badge is constructed, there's a way for someone to click on it and find out here's the here's the project, here's the paper, here's the website, here's the video that the student produced to to earn this badge. Is that right? 

Anne Reed 20:43
Yeah, right, Right. And obviously, there's most likely going to be multiple pieces of evidence that someone submits or, you know, there's multiple assessments in any kind of learning program or experience. But but the evidence ideally should be something that, you know, showcases the skills. And oftentimes it'll be... I mean, I think a best practice is to allow the learner to decide what evidence they want. What they feel like is really demonstrates the knowledge and skills that they gained and, you know, even if they don't... not everyone cares about badges, right? Even if they don't push it to LinkedIn or show, you know, put it on their resume at least they are able to... I feel like it should be always something that they can reflect on their learning and talk about. So ideally, the evidence is something that they're they're proud that they did and maybe they would bring up in a job interview or something like that. Or if somebody says, Oh, what did you learn in that micro credential? Well, I don't really know what I learned, but this is what I did and this is what I do. I created this project. Here's my data visualization that I learned how to create, and this is evidence that I know how to do it, you know? 

Derek Bruff 22:01
So, yeah, yeah, it's in some ways more tangible than a kind of a more abstract list of skills earned right? And it gives students something to talk about when they're interviewing or or networking. 

Anne Reed 22:13
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. 

Derek Bruff 22:15
I love that. So what, what role do faculty have in the development of micro credentials at Buffalo? 

Anne Reed 22:24
They have a very active role in micro credentials. So we, we don't kind of strategically develop micro credentials. We, I mean the departments probably probably do, but my office doesn't sort of say, Oh, these are the skills we need, we need to develop these micro credentials. It's it's led by the faculty. So we have a we initially put out a call for proposals for micro credentials, but now we have open... we accept proposals on an ongoing basis.

So faculty will, you know, they start out by recognizing a need. They're the ones who are closest to their students and to their discipline. Sometimes it will maybe come from the dean and sometimes it comes from professional staff, right? Because we have academic support units that offer micro credentials. But let's say it's a faculty member who recognizes a need for students to gain a specific skill so they conceive of the micro credential, they develop the proposal. They, you know, essentially designed the curriculum and the assessments. My office works with them for support if and when needed.

And then once the micro credential is approved, they you know, they teach you know, they're the ones who deliver the content, they support the learners. In some cases, they perform the administrative duties for micro credentials. In other cases, there's an administrative person in like the dean's office who oversees that, like handling like the enrollment and things like that. But we have some faculty who, you know, they're excited about a very specific subset of their discipline, and they believe that this is something that has value for students. And they they own the program. Essentially, it's their program. And so, you know, I have had questions from other institutions like how do you get faculty buy in? How do you make sure faculty are incentivized, things like that. But they're it's a really it's an internal motivation. Nobody has to develop a micro credential, but they continually seem to want to, which is exciting.  

Derek Bruff 24:48
Yeah. Well, yeah. And I can imagine, you know, if there was some kind of requirement where every department had to offer some, then you'd have a lot of questions about how how do we account for faculty labor towards this effort. But my guess is that that question gets solved locally in a variety of ways that make sense for those faculty, right? It's a combination of intrinsic motivation and other stuff they're already doing, and they're probably finding some some secondary value somewhere. You know, faculty, faculty are busy. There's a lot to do, right? So if they can spend time on something, then it kind of needs to count somewhere. And I imagine there's lots of different answers for how it how it counts for faculty. 

Anne Reed 25:27
Yes, for sure, depending on the faculty member and on their department and on the type of micro credential and so many different factors. Yeah. 

Derek Bruff 25:35
Yeah. Well, let me look at the other end for a minute. How do you how do you go about aligning micro credentials with the workforce skills that employers want? Is that how does that weave into your your overall program? 

Anne Reed 25:53
So what we do is we use a very broad competency framework called the NACE Competencies, the National Association of Colleges and Employers. They survey they do a very large scale nationwide survey of employer needs. And so they're essentially transferable professional skills: teamwork and collaboration, problem solving, digital technology. And so all of our micro credentials on our proposal form need to be mapped to at least one of these. So that the whoever whoever's proposing it needs... the design of the program needs to show that the learners can gain at least one of those competencies and oftentimes they're multiple because, you know, things like oral and written communication. Well, I would say probably all of them. There's some demonstration of that. So so they're very broad. But it is a way for us to to to map with competencies that we know are needed in the workforce. So that's the first layer.

And then the second layer is because the faculty are connected with their discipline and their industries. So they know more than our administrative office knows what those needs are. And so we ask them to, beyond the NACE competencies, to indicate any technical or discipline-specific skills that are earned upon completion of the micro credential. And if they are unsure, then we connect them with either, you know, the right, the right tools or support, right. So we we use O*NET, the skills database we and I'll point them to O*NET to see what are the skills that are needed for for that field or in hiring. So so that we're using the right language. And when we tag the credentials or in some cases-- 

Derek Bruff 28:03
You said "oh net"? 

Anne Reed 28:05
O*NET, oh what does it stand for?

Derek Bruff 28:08
How do you spell it? 

Anne Reed 28:09
"O" and then it has a little star, you know, the little asterisk and then "NET." It's the occupational information network. Basically. It's a it's the it's the you are not I shouldn't say most not most... many countries have a sort of national skills database and O*NET is is ours. And so Yeah. And so so we use that and, and then, and then many of our micro credentials are developed in close collaboration in some way with, you know, external partners like, you know, community organizations or employers. There's some relationship where either the learner has an experiential, there's an experiential component where the learner goes out to a site for, you know, part of the part of that might be built into the micro credential.  So so when there's that collaboration with external partners, there is that input into the sort of curriculum and the skills that way.

There's a there's a lot of different ways, right? I was just working with someone who's developing a micro credential, for instance, at Institutional Analytics or something like that. And so she is I she wasn't sure about the the skills and the learning objectives and essentially she wanted to make sure that what the learners were gaining would actually prepare them for the specific field. And so she connected with a handful of folks who work in that field to sort of chat very informally. So it's kind of... there's a whole range of ways to determine in if our micro credentials are kind of aligned with the job skills that employers want. There's not really a one size fits all, but we have kind of a tool kit to support faculty when they're at that point of designing the micro credential.

We're at a point now where we've been offering micro credentials for four or five years, where we're thinking about developing a process so that we revisit these skills, right? Because skills are changing and we don't want to be teaching skills that are no longer needed, especially for some of the micro credentials that are digital technology related. You know what I mean? So yeah, so we're we're thinking about how often that should be that we go back and review the micro credentials and see where revisions need to be made. 

Derek Bruff 31:03
So what, what are some motivations that students have for pursuing these? And in part I ask that question because often when I hear about micro credentials discussed in higher ed, the context is adult working professionals who are coming back to school to gain certain skills. But yours are designed for undergraduate and graduate students who are already enrolled. And so what motivates a student like that to pursue a micro credential? 

Anne Reed 31:30
Yeah, that's a great question. We do offer some micro credentials for non-students and we do. Some are very specifically developed for that demographic who are maybe looking for skills to be more effective in their current job or are considering a career change or something like that. But yeah, the majority of our micro credentials are designed to support our current students in reaching their professional goals, and so  I can't speak for students, but I have we do do a pre and post survey and I have connected with students directly too. So I have a general sense, I think, of of why they pursue micro credentials because again, it's like the faculty don't have to develop micro credentials and students don't have to earn them. So there must be a reason, right?

So I have I, I hear over and over again and I'm excited when I hear because this is what I what I think micro credentials are should be right, that students are looking for ways to differentiate themselves from other other students, maybe differentiate themselves in the workforce, maybe to build up their resumé and gain not only a credential, but the the experience and the learning that's behind the credential and in some cases that those experiences and learning that might be to support their professional goals, you know, the job that they want to get and they see that this skill will help them get that job or in some case, it might be, you know, simply something that they're interested in maybe exploring. And so that's sort of a low stakes way to explore something. I think that's the case too, for for non-degree seekers or for learners who are not current UB students who enroll in micro credentials, specifically credit bearing micro credentials. We have a small percentage of folks who come to UB as a non matriculated student to earn a micro credential and in some cases they might be contemplating earning a degree. 

Derek Bruff 33:45
Oh sure. Maybe looking ahead to a job change or something. Yeah. So you kind of test the waters. 

Anne Reed 33:54
Yeah exactly And so that's again a much lower stakes than saying I'm going to quit my job and enroll in this full time degree program. So, so yeah, different motivations I think for different people. 

Derek Bruff 34:07
Yeah. Well, and speaking of full time degree programs, I think I'll end with this question. Given your work with micro credentials, do you think higher education needs to be reconsidering the four year bachelor's degree, the idea of majors and minors? Right. Are these are micro credentials kind of showing some some cracks in some long held assumptions about what an undergraduate degree needs to look like? 

Anne Reed 34:35
Oh, yeah, I think I think that's a great question. I think like any I think any new innovation or any good innovation will have us reconsidering the way that we've done things before. And obviously oftentimes that's why innovations emerge. Right?

But I think that micro credentials can... I definitely don't think that they should or will ever replace degrees. I think that obviously there's ample evidence of the benefits of degrees in so many different ways. But I think that we can look at micro credentials to us make better decisions when we're designing any kind of learning experiences. You know, micro credentials are very explicit about the learning and the skills that are gained and helping students understand those skills and helping others who might be a evaluating their qualifications to understand those skills. And so in general, micro credentials could help with better alignment between learning objectives and demonstration of learning objectives. And what does it mean to be able to show that you have mastered a skill? You know, how can we actually document that and ways that can have meaning, you know, outside of the immediate context.

So, you know, people say higher education is a dinosaur, it takes so long, they never change. And I I'm a little bit bothered by that because I think when there's traditions and, you know, when something, you're very much concerned with quality, you know, learning is something to be taken very seriously. We don't want to just jump into changing things. We want to be mindful of our change. Right? But the true credentials that we offer have not changed very much in a very long time. I mean, more credentials, different credentials. But the essential framework is been the same for for decades, I believe. And so micro credentials are a way to, you know, explore ways to improve our existing credentialing practices. 

Derek Bruff 37:01
Yeah. Well, and I know I've been hearing about that digital badging and such for years in higher ed. And so I appreciate you taking some time to talk with us about a program that's several years into this and has some nice structures and examples set up because I think a lot of institutions are still kind of fumbling through what this means for them. So thank you for thank you for coming on and for sharing today. I appreciate it. 

Anne Reed 37:23
Yeah, it's my pleasure. It's so good talking to you. Thank you, Derek. 

Derek Bruff 37:29
That was Anne Reed, director of micro-credentials and digital badges at the University of Buffalo. Thanks to Anne for coming on the show, and thanks to UPCEA for recommending Anne to me! 

Anne mentioned to me that while the University of Buffalo badges have value because they’re endorsed by the university, anyone can create and award their own badges thanks to open badging standards that have been developed. She half-joked that I could create a badge for her for being an outstanding guest on the podcast, and I thought that sounded like a great idea! I asked her about a badging platform to use, and she recommended one called Badge List.

In just a few minutes, I was able to create an account on Badge List, set up a group for the Intentional Teaching podcast, and create an “Outstanding Podcast Guest” badge. The badge has one required piece of evidence: a link to the badge earner’s appearance on the Intentional Teaching podcast. I sent the badge to Anne, who created an account on Badge List and submitted this very episode as her evidence of achievement. That generated an email from Badge List to me, letting me know that my feedback was needed on her badge. I logged in, approved her evidence (and thanked her for appearing on the podcast), and endorsed her badge. That, in turn, generated an email to Anne, letting her know she had achieved the badge and inviting her to share her new badge. 

Anne shared her badge on her LinkedIn profile, and I’ll include a link to the badge in the show notes for this episode so you can see what an earned badge looks like. In short, it’s a web page that shows Anne earned the “Outstanding Podcast Guest” badge, complete with a description of the badge, Anne’s evidence of achievement (that is, a link to this very podcast episode), and my endorsement of her work. At the University of Buffalo, they use Credly instead of Badge List for their micro-credentials, and I gather that Credly badges present very similarly. 

I feel like I’ve been hearing about the potential for micro-credentials and badges for years now, but it seems that these tools are now ready for prime-time. Will employers take university-issued badges seriously? That remains to be seen, but I saw that the University of Texas system has partnered with Coursera to offer its students more than 30 entry-level professional certificates from companies like Google, IBM, and Salesforce. So there seems to be a there there now when it comes to micro-credentials!

Thanks again to Anne Reed for coming on and giving us this tour of micro-credentials at the University of Buffalo. See the show notes for more information on her work and a list of the 100-plus badges that Buffalo offers. And come back for our next episode of Intentional Teaching as we look at another innovative effort to prepare undergraduate students with more workforce relevant skills.

Intentional Teaching is sponsored by UPCEA, the online and professional education association. In the show notes, you’ll find a link to the UPCEA website, where you can find out about their research, networking opportunities, and professional development offerings.

This episode of Intentional Teaching was produced and edited by me, Derek Bruff. See the show notes for links to my website, the Intentional Teaching newsletter, and my Patreon, where you can help support the show for just a few bucks a month. If you’ve found this or any episode of Intentional Teaching useful, would you consider sharing it with a colleague? That would mean a lot.
As always, thanks for listening.