The Currency Exchange between Badge Communities

The Content

This week I read 3 research journals that outline aspects of badges in education, as well as a video of Erik Klopfer discussing mobile learning in education.

The first article I read was Davis and Sing’s Digital badges in afterschool learning: Documenting the perspectives and experiences of students and educators.  This research looks at the effects of awarding badges to student work, and how it allows students to apply knowledge in areas outside of where they learn the content.

Next I read An Online Badging System Supporting Educators’ STEM Learning by Gamrat and Zimmerman.  This article outlines some of the ways in which badging systems can benefit participants during professional development.

The third article was Gamrat et al.’s Personalized workplace learning: An exploratory study on digital badging within a teacher professional development program.  This article used much of the same data from the previous article, but framed it in a personalized learning environment.

Finally, Klopfer’s video discusses some of the advantages to be had by using mobile devices.  He also makes an interesting observation that devices these days are geared towards consumption.  Klopfer is hopeful that will change in the near future.

Some Common Themes

1. Defined Goals

In each of these resources, we see some discussion on the importance of setting predefined goals.  Gamrat et al. state “We found that initial planning served to focus the learners, which helped them articulate and assess their own needs” (p. 10, 2014)” in their discussion of success in personalized learning.  They found that when participants created their own self directed goals, they were more likely to succeed.

We also see this in Davis and Singh’s work, although it comes in the form of what they call learning pathways.  They found that “Both adults and students expressed optimism about the potential for badges to empower students by placing them in control of documenting and displaying their learning.” (p. 78, 2015)  By choosing their own paths, students showed high rates of completion, as well as felt more empowered.

We can even see this in Klopfer’s video.  Many of the successes he is excited about relate to students have projects, and completing them.  More so, he is excited about the fact that the projects have purpose and provide a service to others.

As a result of reaching these goals, students and teachers are given a badge.  This badge provides credibility to community(more on this later).  This community leads to another common theme.

2.  Communities of Practice

With the concept of badges, we can once again see communities of practice coming into play.  Barab and Duffy (2013) as well as Hoadley (2015) determine that a community of practice is based on a social and anthropological view of content and not a synthesized environment within a formal educational institution.  The concept of badges certainly fit into this concept.  For instance Gamrat and Zimmerman point out that subjects participating in their study were not only teaching, but learning from other experts in similar fields, including NASA.  In this case we see the entire spectrum of learners in a community of practice, from the novice, peripheral learners to the experts.  The teachers involved in this program are somewhere in the middle.  We would expect that there are always going to be students, and that those students will someday become the expert, and to continue the community, pass on the information to peripheral learners, yet again.  By introducing badges, we are in a way, motivating participants to move on to the next level of their understanding and value to the community.

Davis and Singh also make the point that badges play a role in communities of practice.  In this case, the badges are looked at in a motivational sense.  They state “Both students and adults tied the motivational aspect of badges to their potential to unlock real opportunities for students.” (Davis and Singh, 2015).  They also look describe learning pathways, which is an interesting concept to me.  They say badges represent an alternative method of credentialing that promise to make learning pathways visible and help learners gain recognition for their skills and achievements across contexts(Davis and Singh, 2015).  These learning pathways provide a more clear route to mastery than formal education.

 

Klopfer’s video also provides with a good example of this concept.  Students are working with developers to create a game, which is published for consumption.  We see novices and experts working together to create a product.

My Conclusions, or Lack of Conclusions

I do not disagree that badges are a good idea in education.  They offer opportunities for students to continue learning outside the classroom, receive validation for their accomplishments, and have something to work towards.

One area of concern I see, and it was touched on by Davis and Singh as well, is the concept of credibility, and perception of value.  They state:

In order for badges to serve as effective mediating devices, however, they must be recognized as holding real value by all relevant stakeholders, from students and teachers to admissions officers and prospective employers. The fact that credibility emerged as the most frequently cited challenge to badge adoption reflects the recognition among participants that the potential they saw in badges had not yet been realized.

This sentiment is one I was questioning as well, and it happened throughout my readings.  If a student, or teacher, or anyone for that matter, earns a badge in one walled atmosphere, what value does that badge bring when they leave the community they are involved in?  Will the badge maintain its validity when looked at by folks in a different community?  What if they have their own badge system?  An example of this is occurring in the Connecticut State Department of Education as I type this.  Based on PA 15-94, each school district is required to provide training for CPR, based on the American Heart Association’s materials.  This means that anyone who has previously been credentialed in CPR outside of an American Heart Association course does not meet the requirements.    I fear that badging will face the same future.  Who gets to decide which badge is valid?

I certainly hope it works out, because there are many systems that offer badges, and to be able to use badges to prove knowledge down the road is pretty exciting to students and adults alike.

References

Barab, S., & Duffy, T. (2012). From practice fields to communities of practice. In D. Jonassen & S. Land (Eds.), Theoretical foundations of learning environments(2nd ed., pp. 29–65). New York, NY: Routledge.

Gamrat, C., & Zimmerman, H. (2015). An Online Badging System Supporting Educators’ STEM Learning. In D. Hickey, J. Jovanović, S. Lonn, & J. E. Willis (Eds.), Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on Open Badges in Education co-located with the 5th International Learning Analytics and Knowledge Conference (LAK 2015) (pp. 12–23). Poughkeepsie: CEUR Workshop Proceedings.

Gamrat, C., Zimmerman, H. T., Dudek, J., & Peck, K. (2014). Personalized workplace learning: An exploratory study on digital badging within a teacher professional development program. (pages 1136-1148).

Klopfer, Erik. (2012, 1, 31). Erik Klopfer: Mobile as a Creative Medium. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UHA9XYAXjA.

Hoadley, C. (2012). What is a community of practice and how can we support it. In D. Jonassen & S. Land (Eds.), Theoretical foundations of learning environments (2nd ed., pp. 286–300). New York, NY: Routledge.