It's Not Pokemon Go! - It's Professional Development: A Call for Meaningful Digital Badging
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With a term like “badge” it’s no wonder that so many hear about digital badging and anticipate juvenile experiences, unnecessary and unbeneficial demands on their time and effort, and frustration with more administrative tasks. And yet, within the field of distance learning, digital badging is being promoted as a form of profession credentialing. This lecture with discussion seeks to generate conversation about the legitimization of digital badging for use in higher education and for consumption in the professional world. Conversation will include strategizing methods for transitioning away from the immature impressions of badging and badges and toward the sophisticated application of badging for enhancing the educational experience of learners and the skillsets presented within their resumes. Additionally, this presentation will promote integrating digital badging with campus SLO’s, Bloom’s taxonomy, instructional design, and ePortfolio initiatives. Overall, we seek to start a conversation that connects badging with significant, longer-term achievements of learners and the workforce they seek to enter.
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It's Not Pokemon Go! - It's Professional Development: A Call for Meaningful Digital Badging
- 6. Students
Editor's Notes
- Laureen P. Cantwell: lcantwell@coloradomesa.edu; @LPC_Reads_Books Kristyn K. Rose: k1rose@odu.edu; @glitterstim
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- Essentially, there are three populations of concern with this conversation - College, universities, & their faculty; Employers and the business world at large; and Students. For digital badging to be successful, we can project that investment is necessary and critical from these three populations. Institutions and their faculty handle badge creation, adoption, and execution. Students need to feel that there is value to attaining the badges. Employers need to know what badges are and that there is significance (or weight) to their presence on a resume.
- The quote above is an accepted scholarly definition of what digital badging is. Other ways of understanding the badges exist, though. My 3 favorites noted by Ostashewshi & Reid (2015) in their chapter "A History and Frameworks of Digital Badges in Education" are: (1) "Information and evidence-based credentials complete with a set of data that explains and vets that badge"; (2) Tools for getting jobs, credit, additional learning, reputation and other opportunities"; and (3) "Digital identity and reputation currency". Another interesting description that comes up within the Ostashewski & Reid chapter is their 7th - "Distributed portfolios in that they are skill first, with the evidence linked behind them, instead of the traditional evidence/artifact first without an indication of aligned or assessed skills." (This definition was culled from an email from Knight in 2013.)
- A bit about Millennial learners, in particular, may be useful to discuss, as well.
- In an essay-within-an-article in Communication Education in 2016, Buckner & Strawser note the following characteristics about the Millennial learner - whom they also refer to as the "Me"llennials. Despite the significant interest in success and their high level of motivation, the externalized need for approval and direction, compounded by the de-emphasis of learning and intellectual curiosity - due in part to the connection of college with expenses & financial goals - has come to a head. Students in the Millennial generation in particular, unfortunately, often need to be taught to embrace the learning process and academic responsibility. Meaningful professional development, then, for these students should acknowledge and adapt to two key components: - their "external locus of control" (partly due to lowered self-reliance and narcissism) and - their "grade orientation" (over intellectual stimulation) As ways to combat these issues and characteristics within the higher ed environment, the authors recommend: - "cohesive, clear messages about the purpose of higher education"; (2) "adjusting instructional policies and messages to address millennial characteristics"; (3) "implementing new strategies"; and (4) "continuing to develop a research agenda that improves millennial students' education experiences." I think badging can work to combat the 2nd and the 3rd there – by working with millennial characteristics (tech aficionados, social media/online engagement, high college enrollment) and using new(ish) strategies to establish values and purposes within their education. Digital badges connect with learners through goalsetting, incentives/motivation, accomplishment signification, and communicating success. Ostashewshi & Reid (2015) note that the value of digital badges can be granular (skills/achievements) or high-level (mastery/certification) and that these can signal an individual’s skillset to relevant stakeholders.
- Basically the purpose of this slide is to note that badging relies of motivation to succeed, particularly student motivation and that, while Millennial students tend to be motivated externally, the two strongest motivators are actually internal: self-esteem and self-actualization. Given past US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s view that digital badging could allow individuals to feel empowered while constructing their reputation and branding what learning they have mastered, we need to consider how we can support student reputation-building via digital badging and motivation pedagogy. Fedock, Kebritchi, Sanders, & Holland (2016) contend that digital badges can motivate both intrinsic and extrinsic learners – intrinsic learners through opportunities to gain recognition, internal feelings of satisfaction, and the enjoyment of participation and a job well-done; extrinsic learners through the appearance of earning a reward as well as their fear of failure. (Extrinsic learners desire to avoid punishment and will achieve goals to do so, even though they may not perceive the activity as fun or enjoyable the way that intrinsically motivated students might.) >> Based on hearing the description of these motivation styles and reflecting on the millennial generation, can we agree that these characteristics seem to match millennials with the extrinsic motivation style in particular? One important step then toward students investing in digital badges as a form of professional development is knowing who they are and what motivates them – for the bulk of the current cadre of students, we must understand that earning a badge is a way for them to demonstrate success and earn recognition – while also incentivizing academic responsibility and using an alternative assessment method that allows students to orient with success-markers other than grades. Scaffolding badge earning can also work for both intrinsic and extrinsic learners, as they allow for accumulation of motivators (satisfaction; visible proof of successes/non-failures). (Remember that Buckner/Strawler article.)
- Ian Glover from Sheffield Hallam University (2016) notes that for university students, he recommends using badges to highlight “concrete, ‘marketable’ skills, experience, and knowledge” – these are more desirable and motivating than participation-based badges and/or more abstract badges. Granted, he was working with students at the Sheffield Business School, which may be a more practically-minded bunch, this information does seem to align well with the fact that intrinsic learners will enjoy participating anyway – so a participation badge may not “do it” for them and abstract badges may appeal more if scaffolding exists to bring the student from foundational-to-abstract content mastery. (PS: How do you create a well-defined, specific, outcome-focused badge for an abstract concept?) Extrinsic learners may not seek participation (since they may not find the activity pleasurable) and may not be motivated by abstract badges as they may not be invested in the learning process or learning for pleasure.
- Slide 12, Notes: > Definition: The metadata must be discoverable so 3rd parties (e.g., employers) can see the rigor and requirements involved with attaining a particular badge. This could impact how we view/use transcripts. We also may need a system where employers can check these credentials (almost akin to a badging background check?). Think safeguards and global standards – Mozilla and others are engaged in this, but to our knowledge nothing is set yet. > Usefulness: Employers cannot assign a feeling of usefulness to digital badges on resumes or in professional development if they do not value them as evidence of student/employee learning and engagement. Badges have to be valuable beyond the individual, the institution, and the badging platform. > Supply / Demand: If badges are too easy to acquire, there will be too much supply and the value of the badge (and the potential employee with the badge) will be diminished. Further the skills related to a badge and its metadata must be desirable in the market (whether degree-related or not) and speak to qualifications. > Credibility: The terminology around badges can hurt their credibility, though the history of “badges” tends to orient with proficiency (Scouts), status (Olympians), rank (military), and credibility (police). The industry might want to consider “digital certificate” or “digital credit” instead – as well as the *option* for a printable badge-attainment certificate (which could have badge metadata on the back, etc.). Lastly the very openness of badges can be an issue – if they become to credentialing what Wikipedia is to authoritative sources, we run the risk of badges being highly variable in quality and therefore unreliable as sources of information (about a student/individual)!
- Slide 13, Notes: We are actually going to go over this slide in reverse – > Big Orgs: If higher ed has begun using badges as a way to show skills gained, etc., in terms of staff/faculty professional development, then there’s definitely a place for badging with the biggest population colleges & universities have: their students. Digital badges are not inherently meant to replace the college degree/diploma; they are perhaps best used as supplementary information, as add-ons to a degree, regarding accomplishments and content/skill mastery within higher education, in addition to courses taken, GPA, etc. They are both curricular and co-curricular. Intrinsic learners are motivated less by grades, for one, and they give students additional means to share and discuss the skills they’ve acquired through many avenues; extrinsic learners can find and display success beyond grades. Yet, prospects of integrating in new responsibilities, roles, oversight (dreaded new positions, committees, etc.), and technology routinely daunts higher education – we are not known for our flexibility or agility as “businesses,” but this doesn’t mean the pedagogical, and promotable, advantages of badges don’t exist. > Diffusion of Innovation: This process is key for when, and how, something like digital badging may become adopted at an institution. If your constituents from whom you need buy-in (which is critical in higher ed) don’t see the advantages or feel it will be too complicated to understand or use, you’ve lost the war before it’s begun – communicating the advantages and aiming to minimize complexity are important for the diffusion of innovation. Trialability and compatibility also go together – who might this appeal most to and can we get them on board first in specific, well-defined, assessable ways? This might be your business school (Sheffield Hallam University), your IT department (Harvard), or a Community College System (e.g., Colorado) – show the effort fits the community and scale the effort to fit the communities it fits best – and then make the effort visible. As others see badging being applied in simple, suitable ways, diffusion and adoption tends to increase to broader groups. And if not: you’ve established smart, simple application for one, or several, key communities among your stakeholders and that may be enough! > Oversight: If we are going to limit the openness of the badging, then we need to establish oversight in presenting badges and monitoring badges. Many institutions of higher educations, it’s good to note, have opted out of the Mozilla OpenBadge product in favor of platforms like Credly which make getting started with badging easier but have options for requiring evidence for the attainment of the badge – paper, presentation, video links, you name it. (Other platforms include Merit Badges and Pearson’s Acclaim.) This helps limit what some might call the “wild west”-ness of badges, the Wikipedia-ing of a reputation and an education. We don’t want a badge for # of accumulated badges though – and that’s the risk if they are too oriented with extrinsic learners: success for the sake of feeling successful. This form of badge skepticism might benefit from a scaffolded approach to badging – taking students from foundational concepts to more abstract, or high-level, concepts – or from the installment approach, let a school/program/department of an institution decide whether badging for skills-mastery or accomplishments is appropriate for them, and how. Further, while badges can serve highly- and not-so-highly motivated students alike, with rigorous and appropriate badging established at an institution (even if only at the program level), the students receiving those badges should be the cream of the crop – and not just earning badges for badges’ sake. Speaking of appropriateness and rigor, institutions will also need to establish standards for their badges – and publish them. This will help with the employer stakeholders, at the very least. This may also help keep your institutions badges reliable and valid for what students are taking away from curricular and co-curricular experiences. > Assessment: Everyone’s (least) favorite word. Hand-in-hand with creating reliable and valid badges through oversight is creating assessable badges – they need to be measurable and assessable for determining whether a student (or employee) meets the requirements to achieve the badge. This can be tricky because faculty often like broader objectives—so the badge-able success for the student may require faculty to narrow their outcomes or only assign badge-earning opportunities in very specific ways connected to their learning outcomes. Using digital badges also allows the higher education community to selectively (rigorously, carefully, specifically) have a way of approaching competency-based learning (that learner-mastery thing) alongside traditional (comfortable) grading practices. Badges, therefore, cannot be based merely on passing (That’s a D-!) or attendance (Wanna bet their cell phone was out?). because there are no competencies there, no mastery involved.
- Is it possible?
- <<Lol this is a terrible equation. Perhaps that’s why digital badging buy-in can be tough to gain from stakeholders at institutions below the cutting edge…>> And so what might the shape of high buy-in digital badging look like within higher education: …if we are looking to develop a new dimension to transcripts? …if we are looking to share student skill development beyond the transcript? …if we are looking to connect with both extrinsic and intrinsic learners? …if we are looking to establish rigor and validity? …if we are looking to demonstrate value, and validity to employers?
- …we’ll need to somehow put all this together – no small feat. One strategy that has come up is “unbundling” the college diploma – put forth in a study by Pearson, UPCEA, & Penn State (June 2016). For many industries the diploma, major, and courses taken are not the be-all end-all of what they want for their employees. Here’s an analogy for what I mean… Some people buy albums. Some people buy songs. Some buy both. An album could be equivalent to a full baccalaureate degree, whereas a song might be a micro-credential like a badge. The person who “buys” both just might be the ideal college graduate in the eyes of prospective employers – or the badge may be more critical for some (ok, you failed computer science, but you rocked C++ certification), or the degree (Masters in ____ required). What becomes critical here are the options enabled by flexibility, supported by rigor. [The trouble of this analogy is, of course, that students should earn their education – whether a degree or a micro-credential – rather than “purchase” it…] But we don’t want to become too “unbundled” – we don’t want the wild west-like Wikipedia-ification of digital credentialization to “happen” to academia but we do need a flexible system to establish industry-desired options that match the rigor and reputation of the institution granting the badges. That’s where the work to create a framework comes in – The Lumina Foundation, which developed the Degree Qualifications Profile (or DQP), has created a Beta Credentials Framework based on competencies which act as “common reference points to help understand and compare the levels and types of knowledge that underlie degrees, certificates, industry certifications, licenses, apprenticeships, badges, and other credentials. This places badging within a group of respected credentials with standards, provides routes for industry members and academics to find common language and definitions, and allow for many applications. The Framework has 8 levels and several key skills. Skills are knowledge, specialized skills, personal skills, and social skills and – for each skill – there are 8 levels that arc from fundamental competency of narrow and limited tasks (1) to competency with specialized and complex tasks for a particular field (4) and advanced competencies (5) for the same to the capacity for a wide range of strategic and scientific thinking and creative action (8). This Framework could be an avenue for alignment of digital credentialing alongside the traditional grades and transcripts approach that allows for a shared vision of rigor as well as a defined scaffolding of marketable skills.
- Further research slide: Takeaways from presentation: > Can we establish digital credentialing alongside and within the higher education environment? Yes. > Do we need to supplant traditional higher education with digital credentials? No. > What will it take to allow these two to coexist not in competition with each other? Perceived value from all stakeholders; measurable and reliable outcomes for earning credentials; rigorous means of earning credentials; ease of adoption, application, explanation, and standardization for university and employer stakeholders. > What do digital credentials need to be for the student-user? An example of success and/or a job well done; typically rigorous to earn and possibly scaffolded; personal; a form of recognition; marketable and meaningful to the outside world; and perhaps most importantly: understood by the earner (they need to know why they have this recognition; enable them to explain it to outsiders!). Ideas for further research: > Can we reformat transcripts so that digital badges appear alongside grades, to echo concepts mastered, not just courses tackled? Are transcripts obsolete? > Can badge standards be developed to aid in credibility & adoptability? > How can higher education use digital badges and/or micro-credentials to "unbundle" their degrees and/or fear new things less? > How well do potential employers understand digital badges? Do they value them as evidence of achievement? If not, what factors might affect that sense of value? How might involving employers somehow in the badge design process raise awareness & understanding of badges and increase desirability?
- This list should indicate anything we used … Also - Orgs-to-Know: >> Badging: Credly, Mozilla, HASTAC, Merit Badges, & Acclaim; >> Key institutions: Purdue & Illinois State for schools using with students; MIT, Harvard for employee use