There’s a badge for that

Badges will be very familiar to those involved in the Guiding and Scouting movements. Guides and Scouts collect a wide variety of badges from Astronomy to World Cultures. In each case, there is a list of criteria detailing what activities are required to achieve the badge. These are the set criteria required for this achievement to be acknowledged, and once there is evidence the criteria have been met, the badge is awarded. As these criteria are publicly available, people who view the badge know what was done to achieve it.

In our education systems generally, we are very good at acknowledging students’ overall achievements in a subject. So if we know a student grade in A-level chemistry or their university chemistry exam, we have a general impression about what that means. But what we might not know is what aspects the student has done well in, nor what specific achievements the student attained beyond the scope of what was formally examined.

In response to this, the concept of using badges and ‘micro-accreditation’ has gained a lot of interest in education in recent years. The approach mirrors that championed by Scouts and Guides, although instead of issuing physical badges, these new education-related badges are digital.