WISCONSIN ASSOCIATION OF SCHOOL PERSONNEL ADMINISTRATORS
Supporting Educators in Career & Compensation Advancement
WASPA has partnered with BloomBoard to offer Wisconsin educators a continuing education framework that leverages micro-credentials for personalized professional learning and potential career advancement. This new competency-based program provides educators with flexible, job-embedded opportunities that may result in professional advancement.
Program Overview
In partnership with BloomBoard, WASPA is offering a competency-based professional learning framework that enables educators to prove proficiency in specific practice areas while accumulating masters equivalent credit hours*. By completing a set of specialized micro-endorsements, educators will have demonstrated skills that can open up new career opportunities and (depending on the district) potentially advance in their compensation via existing salary schedule credit.
As part of WASPA’s program, districts and their educators will have the ability to choose from a selection of pre-approved specialized micro-endorsements.
WASPA will be kicking off this new program on June 28, 2021 with a special focus on Learning Recovery. The deadline for educators to enroll in the program is June 21, 2021. Additional micro-endorsement programs will be added in the coming months.
*Masters equivalent credit hours granted upon district approval
What is a Micro-endorsement?
Rooted in the concept of existing teaching endorsements, micro-endorsements can be thought of as a competency-based approach to building requisite levels of proficiency in specific skill areas such as subject or pedagogical topics. The conceptual difference between traditional endorsements and micro-endorsements is that each micro-endorsement is made up of a cohesive group of micro-credentials, each representing an educator’s demonstration of competence in a single skill. By completing the series of micro-credentials in a micro-endorsement, an educator demonstrates their general competence and qualification in a subject area or pedagogical topic.
Foundations of Addressing Learning Recovery
This micro-endorsement is a competency-based learning program designed to support educators in addressing learning loss that may have occured as a result of the pandemic. Teachers will learn-by-doing through a set of micro-credentials based on foundational principles of dealing with learning loss and variability. The following micro-credentials are included in the program:
- Leveraging Coherence to Address Learning Loss
- Structuring the Classroom to Support All Students
- Scaffolding Instruction for Individual Students
Foundations of Attending to Equity
The Equity program is a competency-based learning program designed to prepare educators to understand systemic discrimination and support individual students. It allows teachers to learn-by-doing through a set of micro-credentials based on foundational principles of attending to equity. The following micro-credentials are included in the program:
- Exploring and Deepening an Equity Mindset
- Assessing the Current Classroom Culture for Equity
- Using Restorative Practices in Your Classroom
Foundations of Addressing Student Well-being
This micro-endorsement is a competency-based learning program designed to prepare educators to support the social and emotional needs of students in their classrooms. It allows teachers to learn-by-doing through a set of micro-credentials based on foundational principles of effective social and emotional learning. The following micro-credentials are included in the program:
- Building Positive Relationships with Students
- Assessing the Well-being of Individual Students
- Addressing the Well-being of Individual Students
Foundations of Blended Learning
This micro-endorsement is a competency-based learning program designed to prepare educators to understand how to implement effective blended learning. It allows teachers to learn-by-doing through a set of micro-credentials based on foundational principles of blended learning. The following micro-credentials are included in the program:
- Building Positive Relationships with Students (in a Blended Environment)
- Designing a Weekly Blended Learning Arc
- Establishing Student Norms in a Blended Environment
Program Benefits
Low-cost
The program provides educators with a low-cost alternative to graduate courses.
Job-Embedded
Micro-credentials are job-embedded and much of the learning is integrated into your existing classroom practice.
Personalized
Select micro-endorsements you want to complete based on your personal interests and professional goals.
Salary Advancement
If your district has ACP approval, you have the potential to earn salary advancement for program completion!
How Micro-credentials Work
A micro-credential is earned by demonstrating competence in a specific skill via a portfolio of evidence created through classroom practice. Micro-credentials on BloomBoard follow the ADDIE (Analyze, Design, Develop, Implement, Evaluate) instructional design framework. All micro-credentials are based on a robust, standardized blueprint, grounded in four areas of instructional efficacy research including, cycles of inquiry, job-embedded supports, rigorously calibrated assessment, and portfolio-based learning.
Learn more about micro-credentials »
“Working through the micro-credentials, I’ve learned so many things that will benefit my students, my school, and my county!”