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One of the toughest challenges in adult education is simply getting people to complete their course. This is especially true when dealing with time-poor working professionals - even though they are one of the most likely groups to benefit from the impact of learning. With these groups often representing an un- or under-tapped market for educators, it is essential to find a way to attract these learners, promote learner engagement and help working professionals reap the benefits of learning.
Micro-credentials offer a potential solution to this problem, allowing you to offer short, credentialed courses that can be more easily accommodated into the packed schedules of professionals, while offering new methods for promoting learner engagement and lifelong learning.
In this blog post, we look at ways that you can use micro-credentials to increase recruitment, engagement and retention of students, promote lifelong learning, and build successful industry partnerships.
Promoting ongoing learner engagement with micro-credentials
The Global Smart Learning Market size is expected to grow by over 20% per year from 2023 to 2028. Micro-credentials form a key part of this shift as learners increasingly seek flexible and accessible learning options that can quickly equip them with relevant skills to compete in a changing job market, and employers are supporting this change; a recent report by Collegis and the University Professional and Continuing education Association found that 95% of employers think it’s a good thing if their employees are earning micro-credentials, and more than 70% said that micro-credentials have helped their organisation fill skills gaps.
Micro-credentials can generate additional revenue for colleges and universities, opening up markets whose aims are not served by longer-form qualifications. With micro-credentials, education institutions can tap into lifelong learning opportunities and form potential partnerships with industry to facilitate ongoing workplace upskilling and reskilling programs.
In addition to this, micro-credentials offer ways to boost learner engagement throughout the course of their learning by offering regular positive feedback in the form of micro-credentialed badges or qualifications.
There are a range of benefits to making micro-credentials a part of your education portfolio, that apply to learners, education institutions and wider industry.
Rapid Upskilling in Key Areas: This is one of the key benefits of micro-credentials for working cohorts; the pressures of maintaining currency in a rapidly changing world are driving a need for on-demand upskilling and reskilling, with micro-credentials serving as an excellent way to help serve this demand. Micro-credentials allow educators to develop tailored pathways to address skill gaps and upskilling opportunities with far more speed and flexibility than in the past, helping align their offerings with the needs of the job market and enhancing the institution's attractiveness to prospective students.
Micro-credentials enable learners to acquire specialised knowledge and skills efficiently, allowing them to focus on specific areas that align with their career aspirations and quickly upskill in those domains. This can be especially useful for learners who are looking to advance their career, either through developing their role or by transferring their skills to a new position, helping them develop the capabilities that they will need to succeed in their new role.
Industry-Linked Skills and Credentials: By developing micro-credentials in collaboration with industry experts and employers, educators can help learners acquire skills that are directly applicable in the job market and recognized by employers and provide employers with the skills they need to operate effectively.
Micro-credentials allow employers to design customised upskilling paths for their workforce. In conjunction with learning providers, employers can develop micro--credentialed courses that target specific specific skills gaps and provide employees with the necessary training to address those gaps effectively. The flexibility and size of micro-credentialed courses mean that employees can acquire new skills while balancing their work responsibilities, contributing to the employees personal development and allowing the organisation to develop required skills in-house while maintaining learner engagement throughout the training process.
Transferable Credits: Micro-credentials can be designed to be ‘stackable’, meaning learners can accumulate multiple credentials over time and eventually transfer them toward a larger degree program. Stackable micro-credentials give learners more control over where and how they source their learning, not only leading to improved learner engagement, but also promoting lifelong learning by providing greater flexibility.
Stackable micro-credentials can also serve as a stepping stone for learners to pursue further education. By providing clear pathways and credit transfer options, institutions can encourage learner engagement with their qualifications and encourage them to continue their educational journey beyond the initial micro-credential, including offering paths and credit towards degree-level qualifications, maintaining the engagement and retention of the learner cohorts that have been attracted through micro-credential offerings.
Transferable recognition: Providing recognition or formalisation of skills developed in the workplace can often be a challenge for both educators and workplaces. Micro-credentials offer a structured, recognisable and transferrable way for students to demonstrate their capability in key areas that can be carried forwards to new job roles and other education institutions.
Micro-credentials provide tangible evidence of an individual's competencies. Providing micro-credentialed pathways that provide learners with proof of these skills is a valuable way for both education institutions and employers to recognise and show appreciation for the skills learners already have, increasing overall engagement and allowing the learner to focus on the development of new skills.
Setting up Micro-Credentials to maximise learner engagement
To see the largest improvements in learner engagement with micro-credentialed courses it is important to establish effective strategies for their implementation, based on exactly how and why you intend to utilise micro-credentialed courses. Many learning platforms and LMS include support for micro-credentials, but it is worth looking at the additional features that are available on those platforms that can help you create the right experience and promote learner engagement with your micro-credentials.
Creating market relevant micro-credentials: Most importantly, you must be sure that there is a demand within the education market for the credentials you will create - even the most well-designed course will fail if there are no students interested in engaging with it! Both undertaking thorough market research, and liaising with industry partners can help you to uncover the courses which have high demand, a process which we will look at in more detail in our next blog.
Coaching and Mentoring: Incorporating coaching and mentoring elements into micro-credentialed courses can help support your learners, not just as they undertake the micro-credential itself, but also as they consider the next steps in their learning journey. Learners benefit from personalised guidance and support, which enhances their learner engagement and motivation throughout the learning process. Support for manager-led coaching is especially relevant when developing workplace-integrated micro-credentials, providing a way for managers to provide direct and relevant feedback and support to learners as they progress through their course.
Action Learning: The ability to utilise action learning components as a part of your micro-credentials will encourage learners to apply their newly acquired skills in real-world scenarios through action learning projects. This hands-on approach boosts learner engagement, enhances retention and allows learners to see the practical relevance of their learning, and its hands-on nature makes it especially well suited to both developing new skills and recognising existing capabilities.
Learning Pathways: Some learning management systems, such as Guroo Learning’s Academy, allow for a series of micro-credentialed badges to be linked into Pathways. These create clear pathways for learners to progress through a linked series of micro-credentials. This creates a sense of achievement and progression, motivating learners to complete multiple credentials in a particular domain, and can also be used to contribute to a larger, overarching qualification.
Adaptive Learning: Adaptive learning technologies personalise each learner’s journey based on the needs, experience and preferences of the individual learner. Within microcredentials, this can be used to support recognition of prior learning, suggest possible next steps in the learning journey, and promote learner engagement by bypassing content that is unnecessary or redundant.
Recognizing and Transferring Micro-Credentials: The true value of micro-credentials, especially in a higher-education setting, depends on their being recognised across different organisations. It is important that the micro-credentialed programs you set up can be transferable between differing education organisations, and recognisable by potential employers. Platforms such as Credly can help manage this process, giving a central, recognised system that can be used to issue, track and connect your learner’s digital credentials.
Micro-credentials have emerged as a powerful tool for increasing learner engagement and addressing the evolving needs of learners, higher education institutions, and employers. By providing focused and flexible learning opportunities, micro-credentials enable learners to rapidly acquire in-demand skills and enhance their employability. Higher education institutions can leverage micro-credentials to attract a wider range of learners, generate new revenue streams and provide pathways into further ongoing learning.
By implementing effective strategies and recognising the value of micro-credentials, higher education organisations can create a more engaging learning ecosystem that promotes lifelong learning and empowers individuals to thrive in their careers.