Professional Development
Mississippi District Shifts to Competency-Based Professional Development
The Columbus
Municipal
School District will move to a personalized, competency-based
program for
professional development. The district, which has more than 300
educators in
nine schools, will work with BloomBoard,
a company with a digital platform that
brings together professional development resources and
micro-credentialing to
provide competency-based learning for teachers.
Teachers in the district will have access to
collections of curated
professional development resources that are designed to support the
individual
needs of each teacher. In addition, teachers will have access to
virtual
meeting rooms where they can collaborate with peers and mentors.
Educators in the Mississippi district will be able
to earn more than 200
micro-credentials that demonstrate their skills in everything from data
literacy and teacher leadership to deeper learning, blended learning,
checking
for understanding and STEM teaching practices. They will work in a
competency-based atmosphere, which means they will receive
micro-credentials
for skills they learn — or may already have — as opposed to earning
them for
completing a certain prescribed course.
Micro-credentials are digital certifications that
allow a person to show
competency in a specific skill set. BloomBoard works with nonprofit Digital
Promise, which provides
the micro-credentials, issued by a number of organizations, including
itself.
"We are especially excited
about the potential to use micro-credentials to better recognize the
achievements and competencies of our faculty," said Columbus Municipal
School
District Superintendent Philip W.V. Hickman.
BloomBoard CEO Jason Lange
said, "We believe the key to improving student achievement lies with
making
sure teachers are supported in their professional growth.
Micro-credentials are
a compelling vehicle for delivering personalized opportunities for
educators to
continuously learn and improve their practice."
About the Author
Michael Hart is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer and the former executive editor of THE Journal.