Life can feel like a treadmill workout, moving from a gentle walk to an invigorating jog to a heart-pumping climb—sometimes within an hour. It’s all good, especially when you love what you’re doing, but the busy pace may leave you wondering if you have time for an important career investment: lifelong learning.
For many working adults interested in professional development, the answer is yes. And Walden University’s innovative micro-courses are a quick, accessible, and affordable way to make training and development an ongoing part of your life.
What Are Micro-Courses?
Micro-courses are on-demand online courses designed for busy working adults. Walden’s options are self-paced, and learners have a full 180 days after purchase to complete them. There is an estimated workload of one to eight hours and a price of under $100, with many professional development options available for $45.
Industry experts and Walden faculty members design these micro-courses to reflect the in-demand skills today’s employers need—skills you can use immediately.
Online Career Development
How do you want to learn and grow? You can focus your continuing education on lifelong learning opportunities in these topic areas:
- Professional Skills: Sharpen or expand your expertise in online courses like Let’s Talk Project Management; Managing a Nonprofit Board of Directors; or Go Gig or Go Home, an exploration of the gig economy and its opportunities.
- Skills for Teachers: Effective Classroom Management: A Step-by-Step Strategy provides important skills for becoming a successful behavior manager. In Recognizing Trauma in the Classroom, you’ll learn how to develop strategies to meet the needs of students coping with trauma.
- Personal Development and Wellness: Micro-course offerings include Practices for Cultivating Increased Well-Being and Happiness and Strategies for Publishing Your Work in a Scholarly Journal. Successful completion of Becoming Culturally Responsive Counseling Professionals confers 1 NBCC clock hour.
- Nursing: These micro-courses may meet your professional development goals: Critical Thinking for Nurses: Medication Administration Safety and Nuts and Bolts of Screening for Depression vs. Bipolar Disorder in Primary Care. The nursing online professional development options do not offer CEU credits. Successful completion of a nursing micro-course does provide 1 nursing contact hour.
Are There Courses for Credit?
Micro-courses don’t provide college credit. But after successfully completing a professional development course, you will receive a Certificate of Completion or Professional Certificate. Please note that the Professional Certificates are not academic or postgraduate certificates and do not lead to licensure, certification, or other authority to practice.
For those interested in taking courses for credit, the School of Lifelong Learning also offers more than 250 for-credit individual courses online. If you’re interested in earning a degree or graduate certificate, you’ll find dozens of options in Walden’s more than 100 degree and certificate programs.
And with micro-courses now on the continuing education menu, relevant and affordable training and development opportunities can be a reality for even the busiest working professionals.
Walden University is an accredited institution offering online courses for credit, professional development courses, and tailored employer training programs through its School of Lifelong Learning. Degree seekers may wish to explore Walden’s suite of online degree programs, offered at the bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral level. Learn new skills in a convenient, flexible format that fits your busy life.
Walden University is accredited by The Higher Learning Commission, www.hlcommission.org.
