In Rethinking Digital Badges: Harnessing badges in remaking undergraduate curriculum, Leslie Madsen-Brooks, a digital historian from Boise State, neatly summarizes both.
On a good day, badges provide:
- an alternative assessment method
- engagement by comparing learning to a game setting
- visible evidence of how skills are linked and build on one another
- an option to recognize learning and knowledge achieved beyond the classroom
- emphasis on making to learn and building tangible skills
- a way to put learners in control, through peer teaching, assessment, and recognition
On the dark side, badges:
- provide external motivation, which has been proven to hamper student progress in intellectually demanding tasks
- shift focus from learning to gaming
- may be worthless, depending on the issuer and standard for issuance
Madsen-Brooks writes, "I think what most disappoints me about badges is that too often their implementation is facile; it smacks of the every-kid-gets-a-trophy soccer tournament. Attend a conference plenary session? You get a badge. Get a D- or better on an exam at the end of an online course? You get a badge. Complete one week of a MOOC? You get a badge. I suspect I’m not alone among faculty in seeing badges as little more than a not particularly meaningful gamification of learning."
The author concludes that the real value of badges lies in the potential for restructuring higher education to acknowledge legitimate interdisciplinary work, especially work that goes beyond taking courses. She writes: "That doesn’t mean, however, that the concept of the badge is completely useless. In fact, we might take advantage of the current trendiness of badges to sell university leaders on investing in a true restructuring of the curriculum that benefits both students and faculty."
This article helped me synthesize my own concerns, think about how I want to manage my badge experiment, and what I hope to gain by using badges.
The extrinsic motivation problem concerns me most. Daniel Pink, who collects and analyzes studies of motivation, reports that extrinsic rewards can motivate people to perform mechanical tasks, but that "once the task calls for even rudimentary cognitive skill, a larger reward led to poorer performance."
In presenting and managing the badges, then, I want to focus on badges as objectively-based measurement of progress that help students stay in control of their learning path, as opposed to gold stars showing that the teacher is pleased. I am wondering if the peer-to-peer badge system may be designed with intrinsic motivation in mind, since the system shifts assessment away from teachers to "experts" who include peers.
Another concern is the investment of students' and my own time and energy in the online tasks associated with digital badges. The heaviest investment comes with the set up phase, but there are ongoing management demands as well.
I am still excited to try the badges, though, for some of the reasons that Madsen-Brooks identifies, as well as my own. One of my long-running goals is to offer students multiple paths to reach learning objectives, differentiating instruction. Badges might be a step in that direction. Another long-term goal has been to help students monitor their progress towards learning objectives they understand.
To reach these goals with badges, I'm going to focus on skills badges, as opposed to badges awarded for cumulative achievement or effort. This will take some organization on my part, to structure the smaller pieces into a coherent whole with multiple paths, but I think that's where the badges will be most useful.
I am also interested to see whether I can articulate skills that could be valued by third parties outside of the college. For example, in teaching tech/career/college, I might encourage and support students in increasing their typing speed. Let's say a student earns a badge from me, a community college faculty member, based on objective proof that she can type at 40 wpm, or that she has mastered another tech skill. She puts the badges in her Mozilla backpack online and makes them public. Would an employer be more likely to invite her for an interview than if she merely listed her skills on a resume? And if she can give me the proof, does it matter whether she learned that skill from me in my course, or whether I am merely her happy, official assessor?
The author concludes that the real value of badges lies in the potential for restructuring higher education to acknowledge legitimate interdisciplinary work, especially work that goes beyond taking courses. She writes: "That doesn’t mean, however, that the concept of the badge is completely useless. In fact, we might take advantage of the current trendiness of badges to sell university leaders on investing in a true restructuring of the curriculum that benefits both students and faculty."
This article helped me synthesize my own concerns, think about how I want to manage my badge experiment, and what I hope to gain by using badges.
The extrinsic motivation problem concerns me most. Daniel Pink, who collects and analyzes studies of motivation, reports that extrinsic rewards can motivate people to perform mechanical tasks, but that "once the task calls for even rudimentary cognitive skill, a larger reward led to poorer performance."
In presenting and managing the badges, then, I want to focus on badges as objectively-based measurement of progress that help students stay in control of their learning path, as opposed to gold stars showing that the teacher is pleased. I am wondering if the peer-to-peer badge system may be designed with intrinsic motivation in mind, since the system shifts assessment away from teachers to "experts" who include peers.
Another concern is the investment of students' and my own time and energy in the online tasks associated with digital badges. The heaviest investment comes with the set up phase, but there are ongoing management demands as well.
I am still excited to try the badges, though, for some of the reasons that Madsen-Brooks identifies, as well as my own. One of my long-running goals is to offer students multiple paths to reach learning objectives, differentiating instruction. Badges might be a step in that direction. Another long-term goal has been to help students monitor their progress towards learning objectives they understand.
To reach these goals with badges, I'm going to focus on skills badges, as opposed to badges awarded for cumulative achievement or effort. This will take some organization on my part, to structure the smaller pieces into a coherent whole with multiple paths, but I think that's where the badges will be most useful.
I am also interested to see whether I can articulate skills that could be valued by third parties outside of the college. For example, in teaching tech/career/college, I might encourage and support students in increasing their typing speed. Let's say a student earns a badge from me, a community college faculty member, based on objective proof that she can type at 40 wpm, or that she has mastered another tech skill. She puts the badges in her Mozilla backpack online and makes them public. Would an employer be more likely to invite her for an interview than if she merely listed her skills on a resume? And if she can give me the proof, does it matter whether she learned that skill from me in my course, or whether I am merely her happy, official assessor?
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