Stackable Microcredentials

Goal

Make the program’s credentials work as on-ramps, not just as one long degree. The Animation and Digital Media Arts pathways are restructured into scaffolded, stackable microcredential blocks, each kept under the fifteen-credit cap, so a student earns a real, resume-ready credential early rather than having nothing to show until the full degree is finished. It replaces an existing certificate, designed at another college in the district and adopted here rather than built in-house, that required nearly a degree’s worth of credits without granting a degree. This is enrollment and equity design as much as curriculum design: it starts from where students actually stall or never arrive, and builds a path that meets them there.

Audience

Students who enter from very different starting points: career-changers, first-time college students, and high schoolers in dual enrollment. Each one needs an early, meaningful win and a visible next step. Every block is designed to count toward either the Animation and Time-Based Media AAS or the Digital Media Arts AAS, so nothing a student earns is wasted if they keep going.

Process

The credentials were mapped to their degree outcomes and then broken into stackable blocks that each stay under the fifteen-credit microcredential cap and nest cleanly into the AAS. The design follows the same habit as the rest of this work: curriculum decisions treated as enrollment and equity decisions, grounded in the data on where students leave. The structure was developed and submitted into the college’s Instructional Council curriculum-approval process.

Three blocks make the ladder: a shared Digital Media Foundations entry of 13 credits that both programs start from, then a 12-credit track block for either Animation or Digital Media Arts, then a shared Professional Practice and Portfolio capstone of 12 credits. Each block stays under the fifteen-credit fast-track cap, and all three stack to 37 credits that count straight toward the Animation and Time-Based Media AAS or the Digital Media Arts AAS.

Technology

• Each credential mapped to its AAS degree outcomes, then broken into blocks that each stay under the district’s fifteen-credit fast-track cap.
• Three stacking blocks: a shared 13-credit Digital Media Foundations entry, a 12-credit Animation or Digital Media Arts track, and a shared 12-credit Professional Practice and Portfolio capstone, 37 credits toward either AAS.
• Built and submitted through the college’s Instructional Council curriculum-approval workflow.
• Grounded in Maricopa enrollment and completion data on where students stall or never arrive.

Outcomes

The measure is whether more students earn a credential early and persist toward the degree, and whether the on-ramps reach the career-changers, first-time, and dual-enrollment students they are built for. Those numbers come once the microcredentials are approved and running; for now the outcome is named rather than claimed.

Status

Designed and advancing through the college’s Instructional Council approval process, with implementation targeted for 2027 to 2028 as the requests move through governance.