discussion forums, blogs or wikis. Badges can be award- ed for students' contributions, good responses and peer feedback
The good example -
Use badges to motivate and engage students
Using badges in Higher Education
In brief
Below we explain how you can use badges for both formal learning activities, i.e. courses that are part of a study programme at the university and in connection with informal learning opportunities, e.g. students’ participation in courses and workshops on study or academic skills offered by the library or student services.
When you use badges in your teaching, it is important that you:
Badges in your courses A badge can be used as a pass mark and can be connected with the main course activities (off or online) to signpost the main learning path of the course to students. This was done in the Teaching for Tomorrow course – see the example Badges on T4T. Badges can also be used to encourage and motivate students to participate in any online activities you have planned, e.g. in students’ information sharing, joint knowledge construction or peer feedback activities in discussion forums, blogs or wikis. Badges can be awarded for students’ contributions, good responses and peer feedback, review and deployment of feedback etc. Badges can also be used to acknowledge the level of performance. You can, e.g., add badges to self-assessment quizzes that you encourage students to take. In order to motivate students to do their best, you can award different types of badges depending on quiz scores: Bronze for an acceptable score, silver for a good score and gold for an excellent score. Furthermore, a platinum badge could be awarded to students who take all quizzes. Another possibility is to award badges as extra credit to acknowledge the work of students who submit all their assignments or do extra work in your course. Acknowledge students’ informal learning Badges can be awarded to students for their participation in activities that help them acquire good study skills and academic skills. In this way, a university can signal to students that these general skills are important and the badges can motivate students to engage in the activities. Students are often encouraged to do extracurricular work to gain knowledge, skills and competences that help them get employed once they have finished their studies. Badges can be awarded to students who take part in extracurricular activities to acknowledge the informal learning that takes place.
• always make sure that a badge is connected with one or more of the learning goals of the subject/ course/activity in question. Avoid side-tracking students from main learning goals by offering badges for efforts that lead in another/irrelevant direction. • clearly state what important and relevant knowledge, skills and/or competences must be acquired by the student to obtain the badge. This will make the use of badges meaningful and secure their value both to students and potential employers. • don’t let students compete for the badges, but award badges to all students who fulfil the criteria. In this way, focus will be on the students’ efforts and performance, and all students will have a chance of earning badges.
Contact Inger-Marie F. Christensen 6550 7501
[email protected] SDU Centre for Teaching and Learning Campusvej 55, 5230 Odense M Entrance H by the SDU Swimming Pool - Directory May 2017
SDU CENTRE FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING
