The Lab’s 21st Century Skills Micro-credentials: Pedagogy
The Lab’s 21st century skills digital micro-credentials have been designed to help learners develop a firm grasp on their strengths and areas of improvement through ongoing assessment; to acquire knowledge about the skills and practice them in meaningful ways.
The Lab’s 21st Century Skills Micro-credentials
Active, Engaged Learning with Multiple Feedback Loops
Learning science suggests that people learn best when they are given the opportunity to apply their learning. The Lab used this knowledge to develop our rigorous micro-credentials, to make learning sticky and believes that all micro-credentials should follow a similar formula.
A continual process of learn + practice + reflection to support best practice in teaching and learning quality:
Knowledge: Deep learning that incorporates multi-modal material targeted at each skill’s sub-competencies
Assessment: Multiple, ongoing, and varied measurements for learners to understand, target, and transform their skills
Experience/Reflection: Direct application and practice of the sub-competencies skills so learners can activate the skills in varied contexts
Rigor in Proving Ground Assessments
An often-asked question is how can you assess empathy or initiative or any one of these skills? We incorporate a 360-degree assessment (self and others perspectives), formative, and summative assessment activities along the way to push learners to prove that they are moving the needle. We identify and target the “core four” sub-competencies, some of which overlap
The Lab's 21st Century Skills Sub-competency Map
These sub-competencies are assessed using performance-based activities called “proving grounds.” The proving grounds are each supported with rubrics (developed by experts in assessment) and aligned to the demonstrated tasks that indicate proficiency of the sub-competency. Proficiency across all four sub-competencies is required to earn the micro-credential and digital badge.