#openbadgesMOOC - Session 4: Learning Providers
Badges: New Currency for Professional Credentials
Session 4: Learning Providers
Yesterday the attendees of the #openbadgesMOOC heard presentations from three speakers, each from a key area of learning provision:
Dr. Veronica Diaz, the Associate Director of Educause;
Patricia O'Brien, the Senior VP of the Commission on Institutions of Higher Education (CIHE), part of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC), the major accreditation body for New England;
Richard Culatta, who works for the U.S. Department of Education as the Director of the Office of Educational Technology. See his TED Talks presentation here:
Deb Everhart led yesterday's session, starting with an introduction to the topic of Open Badges and Learning Providers and, more broadly, the challenges currently facing postsecondary education and the role of learning providers in relation to the emergence of innovative educational technologies.
In the above video, Richard Culatta described a digital divide facing education - not the oft-discussed rift between the "haves" and "have nots" but one between those who actively participate in technology vs. those who merely consume it.
Richard spoke of people's perceptions of the role of educational technologies in terms of academic performance as follows: many apply technology to a traditional learning environment in ways that cannot possibly influence student outcomes - digitizing textbooks, for example, or moving lectures to online video platforms.
Technology needs to do entirely new things, not just digitize existing traditional learning - @rec54 on @TED_talks || #openbadgesMOOC
— Mozilla Open Badges (@OpenBadges)
In these instances, outcomes are generally the same, and researchers often report finding "no significant difference" between those who learn using traditional vs. technological resources. The mistake being made - according to Richard - is trying to use new tools in old settings. What educators and learning providers need to do is allow educational technology to do entirely new things, not simply digitize traditional learning. Only then can we start to see the differences in outcomes from these different environments.
Deborah echoed these sentiments, saying:
"we need to use technology to reimagine and improve learning opportunities, 'to use technology to do entirely new things that simply were not possible before', addressing the challenges of learners' unique ind needs, to value mastery instead of fixed scheduling and the application of performance data that can be usefully applied while the learner is progressing."
In postsecondary education, where course credits, grades, and degrees are the dominating currency for credentials, we commonly think about two layers of authority:
Faculty develop, approve, and deliver the curricula offered by their institution. Some programs are developed with input from employers, some are not.
Accrediting agencies ensure that postsecondary institutions meet acceptable levels of quality by conducting peer evaluations based on articulated criteria. Only institutions that receive accreditation by federally-recognized accrediting agencies are eligible for federal financial aid programs. Typically, accreditors do not seek participation from employers as peer reviewers.
As more and more opportunities for open badges in postsecondary education arise, policy and accreditation changes are giving postsecondary institutions the chance to contribute to the badge ecosystem through:
competency-based programs
alternative credentialing methods
using gamification to enhance learning experiences both within and beyond the classroom
Questions to consider this week centered around the roles of faculty bodies and individual faculty, as well as industry regulators concerned with academic accreditation and oversight.
Deborah re-introduced us to Teresa, one of the personas introduced to us by Erin Knight whose access to opportunities increases with the introduction of badges:
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Teresa, a university professor and assistant dean, wants better ways to connect her students to opportunities and prepare them for a career path.
With badges, Teresa is able to recognize learning in the classroom, and connect students with industry partners in preparation for entering the workforce after graduation.
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The role of postsecondary institutions and learning providers, Deborah summarized, is primarily the validation and verification of students' learning achievements. The authority for these institutions to do so is given through accreditation, which guest speaker Patricia O'Brien, from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC), presented on during Monday's session.
Patricia gave attendees a basic overview of accreditation:
A voluntary system of self-regulation carried out by peer review in which an institution or program is found to meet or exceed a set of standards.
The dual purposes of accreditation is to assure quality and foster improvement.
She also discussed the basic mechanisms of an accreditation system, detailing the role of the commission, which monitors changes to the qualities evaluated through student learning and assessment, and maintain / review the standards institutions must meet. Patricia also noted the necessary transparency of the system for it to hold value and authority.
Within the Blackboard Collaborate platform, attendees were discussing the badging of 'soft' and 'hard' skills, a debate that often arises when discussing badges for higher education, with one attendee asking if focusing on badges runs the risk of limiting attention to those skills and achievements that are easy to badge.
Just as Richard Culatta described in his talk on "reimagining learning", many who are thinking about badges for the first time become stuck thinking about how to simply award badges for programs through assessment methods that already exist, rather than seeing the range of opportunities badges create, from gaming to new forms of assessment, to being able to recognize the kinds of learning that currently aren't acknowledged by the current system:
Patricia ended her presentation with a list of questions or issues to consider when thinking about open badges for postsecondary education:
Is credit involved? Accrediting bodies are primarily concerned with credit-bearing experiences, though institutions are responsible for all educational activities done in its name;
Is it high quality assessment, and how do you know? Standards stress the quality, integrity and coherence of academic programs;
Who decides? Standards stress appropriate academic oversight and faculty participation in academic quality assurance;
How many? Most institutions limit the number of transfer / experiential / non-collegiate-sponsored credits accepted - how will this impact those with badges trying to receive credit for them?
What's involved? Demonstrable academic content for experiences for which credit is awarded is expected - learners must be able to show that what they did to earn the badge met the academic standards;
How will students know what to expect? Standards expect clarity and transparency from institutions regarding acceptance of transfer / experiential / non-collegiate-sponsored credit.
Many of these questions are easily answered - being able to demonstrate the work done to earn a badge, for example, is something contained within the badge metadata itself - but a number of these questions will depend entirely on the kinds of badges learners go after. Granular skill-level badges are unlikely to bear academic credit, aiming instead to show competencies that serve as indications of a learner's progress and readiness for assessment. Program-level badges, if developed, will then perhaps have to address issues of accreditation such as meeting standards, being subject to appropriate oversight and bearing credit that factors into transfer credit limits.
Arguably, these questions still represent part of the problem that Richard Culatta outlined - of not seeing innovative technology as something that can do completely new things, but simply trying to adjust it to make it fit the existing restraints on education.
This brings us to Monday's second speaker, Dr. Veronica Diaz, associate director of Educause, a non-profit association whose mission is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology.
One way Educause is doing this is through Competency Reports - documents aiming to showcase a learner's skills and competencies - which Diaz argues is a perfect platform for badges, as the current report still follows a similar line that transcripts and resumes follow, listing but not evidencing skills and achievements.
Diaz's presentation focused heavily on connected learning, with a discussion of what a "T-shaped" learner or employee looks like - well, maybe not what they actually look like, but certainly what kinds of skills and interests they have:
(Apologies to those who had to turn their heads - or laptops - to read that!)
Badges, with their focus on learning that is driven by the learners themselves, are a natural addition to a system of connected learning, where cross-disciplinary interests are integrated with personal experiences and connections so that learners can create their own pathways based on the skills and competencies they possess.
Alongside this presentation, attendees were discussing ways to validate and verify badge information, particularly once badge earners transition from education to the workforce, taking their badges with them. The time investment necessary for checking badge evidence, though not as messy as trying to chase up degrees and other credentials listed on traditional resumes, could still act as a deterrent to employers considering accepting badges.
Until that time when their use is widespread and their composition is understood - meaning, enough employers know that evidence-based credentials called open badges exist and that they contain the metadata needed to understand them - some attendees argue badges won't be as useful as we hope. One way to help this process along could be organizations created with a purpose of vetting the badges - which would probably need the same kind of time to gain enough support and knowledge before being useful as an entity itself, as well as overcoming its own challenges:
Richard Culatta also addressed the issue of validating badges, arguing that many people currently think that what makes a badge valuable is the weight of the issuer's reputation attached to it - which could apply to any potential validation services as well.
One of the best ways the Department of Education can get involved with badges in education, according to Richard, is by focusing on competency-based learning - and "badges are just a nice way to get there." By lowering hurdles across the board, the department can make access to, and integration of, badges much easier for the key learning providers: educators.
Connected Educators Month - which kicked off yesterday - is a department project that is giving millions of teachers access to opportunities to not only develop their skills related to technology and learning but to earn badges for the skills they demonstrate.
"We need to lower the barrier of entry and make badges really easy to get, and get people comfortable with using badges as a currency for professional learning and skills" he argued, "then ratchet up the rigor" once they are more widely understood and adopted.
If badge-validating organizations would face similar hurdles to badges themselves, perhaps the answer lies in an existing organization - perhaps one like Educause, which Deborah Everhart describes as one that "often helps us jostle the status quo" in educational technology and thinking.
Deborah went on to bring Richard Culatta and Veronica Diaz back into the conversation as she went through some questions for all three speakers, starting with one from the attendees' chat platform: how would Patricia respond to critics of accrediting bodies arguing they are 'anti-innovation' and 'seeks to maintain the status quo'?
Patricia's response was that no, accreditation organizations are not against innovation - they have been tasked with what she described as "fostering responsible innovation." There is a high level of trust placed in accreditors to evaluate innovations in education, and to assess their suitability to the environment on a broader scale, she argues; this is done through a peer-review system, allowing accreditation commissions to absorb growing innovations into the ecosystem.
Perhaps the perception of accreditors being anti-innovation come from the phenomenon Richard described - if a technology or new idea doesn't seem to have a place in the current system, often the new idea is rejected - but if the current system is widely acknowledged as flawed, maybe more openness to new ideas is needed.
Richard spoke to the role of the Department of Education in collaborating with accreditation bodies, citing processing problems with the official accreditation channels: The approval process is much too slow, and it can't keep up with innovation, he said. We also need to let go of the top-down authority that holds so much importance in the current system - the beauty of badges is the built-in evidence and trust system that helps validate the credentials.
Will the accreditation process be able - and willing - to change alongside innovations to learning technologies? Will they one day be more inclusive of alternative credentials? Of course, according to Patricia. "I think it's fair to say that accreditation will change in the future because accreditation it has changed significantly since it was first established," she said. Although she isn't sure how those changes will manifest, she agreed that "the notion of higher education changing, and accreditation changing along with it, is certainly valid."
Attendees in the Blackboard chat platform voiced their concerns that accreditation is focused on inputs such as seat-time rather than learning outcomes, Pat disagreed: "that may have been true a quarter century ago or 40 years ago, but now the emphasis of accreditation is on outcomes...what students know and are able to do."
Badges are new to higher education, added Veronica, but as awareness grow, more educators are thinking about trying small pilot programs with badges to see how they work. Through these pilot programs, educators are downplaying the role of the institution and raising the role of the learning: "Badging supports the rise of the individual."
"badges support the rise of the individual" - @drvdiaz on #openbadgesMOOC
— Mozilla Open Badges (@OpenBadges)
———————-Office Hours & Badge Design Lab———————-
Badge Design Labs Start This Week - See Course Activities Area
To support you in your work toward implementing badge systems, we are offering additional weekly activities dedicated to practical application/ making badges / beginning a badge system. Live sessions will be offered at the dates and times below, so please mark your calendars.
Wednesdays Oct. 2, Oct. 9, Oct. 16: 2pm ET. These sessions will include 30 min. of presentation and then hands-on activities.
Thursdays Oct. 3, Oct. 10, Oct. 17: 2pm ET. These sessions will provide office hours with Mozilla badge experts.
For all sessions, please use our regular conference room at: http://tinyurl.com/OpenBadgesCollab
More information can be found within the Course Activities area.
Tell Us What You Think! Mid-Course Survey Now Available
Now that we have reached the midpoint of the course, we are interested in hearing if your course expectations are being met. Please complete the brief mid-course survey available now in the Course Activities area to help us identify ways we can improve the course. The survey should take no more than 3-5 minutes. Thank you for taking the time to answer these questions.
———————-More course information———————-
Courses, credits, certificates, credentials— will badges be added to this list as professionally valued “currency”? A badge is a symbol or indicator of an accomplishment, skill, competency or interest. Badges provide evidence of learning that happens in and beyond the classroom. Badges give prospective employers, professional groups, community groups, schools, collaborators and other learners a more complete picture of knowledge, skills, and abilities.
Join WCET, Mozilla, Blackboard, and Sage Road Solutions – as well as influencers from education, business/industry, government, veterans’ affairs, accreditation, and key foundations – for this interactive, Open Online Course exploring badges as the emerging currency of exchange for creating high value post-secondary and professional credentials.
Click here for more course info.
Click here for a full recording of this week’s session.
Next week’s session: Learners
Monday, October 7 @ 2pm ET
