Improved quality assurance in higher education language programs through micro-credentials

Educational administration professionals lack an effective, accessible pathway to legitimate, practical, self-guided continuous professional development. Those who seek to gain the skills that will help them advance professionally, are essentially left with two options: Conferences and Graduate programs. Micro-credentials offer a viable middle ground. Micro-credentials are particularly attractive to working professionals in that they tend to focus on a skill that the employee or an employer may specifically be seeking; they offer professionals the flexibility to follow a pathway of their own choosing, thus achieving learning milestones in a shorter time period. Furthermore, micro-credentials are increasingly coupled with digital badges, the antithesis to traditional paper certificates, which lack description and have limited portability. This paper examines a project in which a set of micro-credentials for leaders and managers in the English language teaching profession were developed and delivered to current and potential administrators in the field. Issues of applicability, practicality, quality, and scalability are explored.