Unit 4: Co-Designing Change - Microcredentials as Pathways for Action Learning

This unit explores how microcredentials can be designed around change projects that address real social-ecological challenges in higher education and community contexts. Drawing on action learning principles and informed by Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory and Engeström’s expansive learning framework, it highlights how design becomes a process of collaborative inquiry and transformation. 

Through this approach, microcredentials move beyond short courses to become spaces for experimentation, reflection, and innovation—where educators and students co-create, test, and refine practices that advance sustainability and institutional change. 

By engaging with this unit, you will consider how action-learning and expansive-learning cycles can shape microcredential design, and begin outlining a concept for a change-oriented, context-responsive learning pathway in your own setting.

🔍 Documents to Review

• North-West University (South Africa) – Framework for Microcredentials (2023).

  • • Focus on institutional processes, credit allocation, and quality assurance.

• European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Cedefop / ECTE) – Microcredential Design Template. 

  • • Focus on learning outcomes, learner profile, and stackability within broader qualification systems.

This presentation introduces the practical steps in developing microcredentials that support transformative learning. It outlines how to plan the learning journey, identify the target audience, structure modular units, choose digital tools, and create flexible, inclusive designs.

💡 As you watch, consider how your microcredential could integrate an action learning cycle or change project that connects theory with practice..

Microcredentials designed through an ESD-informed change project approach draw on two complementary theories:

• Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory: Learning occurs through social interaction and mediation — new ideas are co-constructed in context.

• Engeström’s Expansive Learning Cycle: Learning emerges through resolving contradictions in practice — moving from questioning existing norms to modelling, implementing, and reflecting on new solutions.

Together, these perspectives position microcredentials as living systems of collaborative experimentation — learning that expands the capacity of individuals and institutions to act for sustainability.

The following framework brings together the core elements to consider when developing microcredentials grounded in action learning and sustainability practices.

It offers practical guidance on designing, managing, and accrediting microcredential units, ensuring they are responsive to learner needs, accessible across various contexts, and aligned with institutional quality assurance processes.