This week’s blog post is focused on the digital badges program that we are integrating into courses as a way for students to learn information literacy skills. For the reboot, we are piloting the use of 2 badges in 12 sections of ENGL 015. However, other courses use the digital badges and one was CAS 201 (Communication Arts and Sciences, Rhetorical Theory), a large class that used them in Fall 2018. Jeff Knapp, our liaison librarian to CAS had the opportunity to provide a course-related session for this class in addition to the badge work students did asynchronously. In this course, students worked on two badges: Evaluating Web Credibility and Recognizing Bias. Here’s how Jeff described the synergy that came with students doing digital badge work that was aligned with his session:

“They were a really great group of 80 students. I asked them about the badges when I opened the lecture, and more than one person raised their hand (that was my first “What the…?” moment). They expressed surprise at what they learned from it and the introspection that it prompted.

Throughout the lecture, any time I posed a question, rhetorical or otherwise, I always had at least three people raise their hands.  And their questions were thoughtful.

And I’m not lying… after I was done, I had exactly FIVE students approach me to thank me for an “interesting lecture”… and they SHOOK MY HAND.

It was surreal, to say the least. 

Seriously— it was one of those handful of experiences you have of your whole career that I’ll remember.

Thanks for all your help with the badges— maybe this will become a regular gig!”

We love this testimonial to how digital badges can take information literacy instruction to the next level! We hope to have many more of these in the future. If you’re interested, please feel free to be in touch.