Creating an inclusive community of practice with micro-credentials
Date
2023
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
Digital competencies have become an essential skill set for most professions. The University of Delaware (UD) needs to recognize and give credit for the digital skills students bring to their graduate studies, and for digital skills learned while in graduate programs. The current structure of humanities graduate programs at UD does not offer this. Further, there is a gap between the number of students that express an interest in graduate-level programs in the humanities, and those who matriculate and graduate from these humanities programs. This gap is especially pronounced for underrepresented minority students. This is particularly striking since UD’s students of color do show an initial interest in digital competencies, and since research shows that people of color contribute significantly to digital spaces. There is a need for UD to better support students of color to maximize and professionalize their digital competencies. In this Educational Leadership Portfolio, I justify the creation of a micro-credential module on digital competencies and describe the design of the scope and sequence of modules that can be utilized in graduate-level public humanities courses to verify personalized digital learning and mastery of discrete competencies. This module will provide graduate students with portable credentials that can be used to demonstrate their skill mastery to an external audience. The design planning for this module will address the engagement and retention of underrepresented minority students to create an intentional community of practice.
Description
Keywords
Community of practice, Microcredentials, Minority student support