The school year is well underway. Whether you’re a seasoned Certiport veteran, or brand new to certification, we know that all educators can use resources to make their jobs easier. On a recent episode of CERTIFIED: Certiport’s Educator Podcast, we sat down with two members of our Certiport team: Caitlin O’Brien, Head of Candidate Services and Customer Support, and Jason Majors, Director of Global Deployment.
Caitlin and Jason walked us through a plethora of resources that you can use in your classroom this year to help your certification program thrive.
Learning Materials and Practice Tests
Certification is a journey, not a destination. This journey begins with learning the concepts and gaining the knowledge upon which skills will be developed. Certiport’s suite of learning products and practice tests enable students and workers to prepare to advance on their certification journey.
Before Jason worked for Certiport, he was an educator in the classroom. He leveraged both learning products and practice tests with his students. Jason said, “I used the learning materials to teach my students the content and the skills that they were going to need to earn the certifications. Afterwards, I was able to use that practice tests to validate those students' skills. With the practice tests, I was able to put them in a practice environment that simulated the certification exam. Using the practice tests not only got my students comfortable with that certification environment, but also validated that the students were ready for their certification.”
You can learn more about Certiport’s learning materials and practice test options here.
Objective Domains
Leveraging learning materials and practice tests helps ensure that your learners master the skills they need for testing day. Combine that with our objective domains, and you’ll have a checklist of skills to make sure your students are ready for whatever certification you’re offering in the classroom.
Objective domains are a comprehensive set of specific and measurable knowledge, skills, and abilities that are the basis for the development of our certification exams, practice tests, and learning products. “I would always ask, ‘What skills do my students need to know to be able to pass this certification?’ By reading through the objective domains, I was able to have a set of core standards to guide us through the entire semester,” said Jason.
All Certiport’s certification exams’ objective domains can be found here.
Certiport’s YouTube Channel
Creative and fun ideas for how to teach are often just as important as what to teach. “Often in CTE courses, there is only one teacher at each school. Flying solo can make collaboration difficult,” lamented Jason. “You can't just walk down the hallway and say, ‘What are you doing about this? Or how are you addressing this in the classroom? What projects are you using?’” That’s where the Certiport YouTube page comes in.
On the Certiport YouTube channel, you’ll find recorded webinars with your fellow educators, success story videos, tips and tricks from the Certiport team, and more.
CERTIFIED Educator Community
You can stay connected on YouTube, and other social media platforms as well. If you’re looking for a community of educators who can help you in the classroom, then the CERTIFIED Educator Community on LinkedIn is your best bet.
Every year, educators come together to listen, learn, and collaborate, sharing their passion for using certification to improve education and change lives during our annual CERTIFIED Educator Conference. The CERTIFIED Educator Community is a chance to continue those connections all year long! Get advice from fellow educators, discover new tools, and learn best practices for classroom success!
You can request to join here.
CATC Newsletter
Staying connected and informed happens on social media, and in your inbox. The Certiport Authorized Testing Center (CATC) Newsletter provides a wealth of information pertaining to Certiport exams, learning materials, important dates, special events and much more. If you haven’t subscribed, make sure to add yourself to the list. You can also see past issues here.
CATC Training Sessions
If you want another channel to connect with the Certiport team, Caitlin’s team is here to help. “The number one thing I would like to see teachers doing is attending the trainings that our Customer Support team hosts,” said Caitlin. “What I love about these training sessions is that we not only walk teachers through the whole process, but it's a webinar with a live presenter. Educators can ask questions, get feedback, get support, and all in real time.”
Multiple training sessions are held weekly, so there’s bound to be one that works for your schedule. You can see the full calendar here. You can also see pre-recorded sessions here.
Compass User Guides
We know that not all questions can wait. Sometimes you need to find an answer on your own schedule. Our Quick Reference Guides cover everything from Certiport’s exam delivery systems, websites, and related procedures. These guides are all detailed walkthroughs. If you need to reference these guides more than once, clear your browser cache to ensure you have the latest version.
“What I like about the User Guides is that you can go at your own pace. You can read, you can stop, you can follow along, and do it yourself,” mentioned Caitlin. “I would also encourage educators to share the guides with their school IT staff, to make sure their labs are set up properly for testing day. Planning and installing Compass early is really the best thing you can do to make sure your testing goes smoothly.”
Kick off the school year successfully. Learn more about the resources mentioned in this post by connecting with our Certiport Territory Managers here.