Badges for Learning: A Design Framework

Design badges that enhance learning and empower your participants.

Why badges?

Badges can:

Badges have the potential to radically shift how learning

...allow individuals to receive recognition for skills and achievements gained

experiences are achieved, shared, and recognized. The

...signal mastery of specific skills or roles

Chicago-based Digital Youth Network (DYN) has developed

a framework that connects badges to a set of learning

...provide bridges between informal learning opportunities and formal

environments

experiences, with an end goal of better supporting interest-

...increase the visibility of potential pathways for learning and exploring new
skills and interests

driven learning in a social community to create richer and

more concrete paths to discovery.

...provide the motivation to explore with a new degree

of interest and confidence
...become more meaningful over time, as learners combine badges to build
a portfolio that represent who they are and what they can do

Badge Types
All badges are not created equal - the DYN framework builds on 3 types of badges.

Community

Skill

Showcase

Community badges recognize behaviors

and attributes that are valued by the
community and reinforce social norms
and practices.

Skill badges provide the learners with

indicators of developing competencies and
broaden their understanding of their
capabilities and accomplishments.

Showcase badges highlight a learners eorts

to share their progress and skills to valued
audiences, promoting a sense of pride,
ownership and identity.

Community

Skill

Recognize specific attributes or behaviors

that are valued by the community

Relate directly to key skills aligned with

identified outcomes

Reinforce social norms and practices

Should have clear connections to doing

Reflect or respond to growing norms in

developing community over time

Require evidence in the form of artifacts

Support mentor to learner as well as learner

to learner recognition of specific attributes
or behaviors

Community badge example:

Critical Friend

Have predetermined expectations of levels of

quality
Are awarded by teacher or mentor
May combine active creation and reflective
components
Skill badge example:

Digital Music

A critical friend badge might

recognize the practice of
providing ongoing feedback
and encouragement to peers in
your class or workshop. It highlights
the community values around feedback and
support between learners.

An intro level digital music

badge might be achieved by
a learner completing multiple
music production & critique
activities that demonstrate
knowledge of digital production software
& basic understanding of song structure.

i.e. Make at least 10 comments a week on the

work of peers for 4 weeks in a row.

i.e. Write a blog critiquing the tone & tempo of

a song + Create a 2 min instrumental with an
intro and chorus that uses 3 types of sounds.

Other Examples of Community Badges:

Workshop Participation
Project Collaborator
Resource Provider

Other Examples of Skill Badges:

Digital Photography
Scratch Game Design
Fashion Design

Showcase
Based in situations or experiences where
concrete skills are demonstrated to an
audience that is valued to the learner
May include components of performance,
exhibition or publication
May have elements of competition
May also reinforce social norms and
practices

Showcase badge example:

Digital Authoring
A digital magazine badge
might recognize people who
have created media selected
by editors to appear in an online
digital magazine featuring the best
work from a programs participants.
i.e. Create & submit an article, video, podcast
or info graphic + Submission selected for quality
& alignment with magazine theme.
Other Examples of Showcase Badges:
Digital Magazine Contributor
Youth Film Festival Presenter

Community
Community badges recognize behaviors and attributes that are valued
by the community and reinforce social norms
and practices.
A learning community facilitates the opportunities for learning and contributing
together. Within any learning environment there are sets of behaviors and practices
a group or community values and promotes amongst learners.
Cultivating environments where learners and mentors can model and practice a set
of shared behaviors that the community values provides learners with essential tools
for navigating and succeeding in new, broader learning experiences and
opportunities.
Most learning does not occur in isolation. Highlighting the value of social
interactions and exchanges that develop shared practices can sustain a vibrant
learning community. Community badges recognize behaviors and attributes that are
valued by the community and reinforces social norms and practices.
We believe that badging learners habits and practices:

promotes and empowers the transference of essential behaviors and

characteristics

creates an understanding of what it means to be a part of a community.

inspires interest-based learning through peer and mentor interactions.

recognizes learner contributions to the community.

As an output of this process, you will identify and define behaviors and attributes
valued by your community and design Community badges that recognizes these in
learners.

Decisions must be made about when and for what purposes Community badges
should be applied to valued attributes and behaviors. Community badges may vary
based on values established by the community for contexts such as face-to-face or
online. These values should be derived from habits and practices that currently
exist, as well as, new habits and practices that would benefit the learners in the
community.
Online:

Adult-to-Youth Exchanges

Peer-to-Peer Exchanges (providing peers feedback on artifacts,

commenting consistently)

Sharing (sharing experiences, artifacts, tools, reflections, providing

resources)

Discussion of topics
Face-to-Face:

Peer-Adult Support (working with an adult on a project, documenting a

process)

Peer-to-Peer Support

Volunteer Opportunities

Leadership Opportunities
Guidelines for creating Community badges:

Identify existing attributes and behaviors your community values and wishes
to highlight and recognizes.

Have a clear sense of dispositions desired to be developed.

Determine the indicators of success for demonstrating behaviors and

attributes.

Have clear evidence that demonstrates deemed social habits and practices.

Consider multiple audiences.

Skill
Skill badges provide the learners with indicators of developing
competencies and broaden their understanding of their capabilities
and accomplishments.
Skill badges represent knowledge or skills gained from a set of experiences and
recognizer mastery of those particular skills. Providing youth with tangible indicators
of competency broadens their understanding of personal accomplishments and
capabilities.
Skill badges recognize that a learner has participated in activities and successfully
demonstrated abilities by completing tasks, artifacts, or projects. They can also
serve as a marker of skills developed across diverse learning environments and they
can connect and leverage these various experiences, interests, communities, and
contexts.
Skills badges:

reinforce personal strengths and competencies

reveal opportunities for growth and areas for improvement
signal to a wider audience a learners qualifications, experiences, and
interests
provide opportunities to connect learning to outside audiences and
networks

Creating a set of skill badges begins by identifying the learning goals and then
follows with a sequence of activities and skill-building benchmarks that build toward
desired outcomes.
A second step is to design assessments to inform the criteria-driven activities. Not
every skill assessment within a learning trajectory will lead to a badge.
Activities and benchmarks should:

relate directly to key skills aligned with identified outcomes

have clear connections to hands-on learning
require evidence of successful completion
have predetermined expectations of levels of quality
be awarded by teacher or mentor
combine active creation and reflective components

Showcase
Showcase badges highlight a learners eorts
to share their progress and skills to valued audiences, promoting a
sense of pride, ownership and identity.
Showcasing a learners development strengthens interest-based learning by
creating incentives for learners to create artifacts, develop skills, share creations,
and identify with new roles.
Showcase badges recognize and indicate a specific level of excellence or
performance based upon identified standards and expectations. By making work
visible to outside, meaningful audiences, showcases and Showcase badges can
promote a sense of pride, ownership, authorship and identity.
We believe that showcasing:

develops a disposition and desire to share, receive feedback and iterate for
the purposes of creating quality artifacts.
creates an understanding of an audiences role which informs the creative
process.
builds social, cultural, and academic capital.

As an output of this process, you will identify your existing showcase opportunities
or create new sets of showcases for your learners. You will then design your
showcase badges, determine expectations and modes of assessment, and finally
map the badges to your modules showcase opportunities.
Creating Showcase Opportunities
Appropriate showcase opportunities will vary based on the context, the learner, and
the artifact that is being created. Some examples include:

Digital magazines (written, graphic and interactive media)

Film Festivals (videos)
Gallery
Performances
Maker Faire

In addition to larger, culminating showcases, smaller showcase opportunities

throughout projects, classes, or workshops can enhance the production process.
Examples include:

Peer critique
Student forums
Debates
Live streams

Decisions must be made about when and for what purposes showcase
opportunities should be created for learners.
Consider a showcase opportunity to:

Reward learners for having reached a milestone.

Provide feedback or reviews to encourage continued progress.
Bolster motivation.
Introduce the roles associated with public presentation.
Create a culture that rewards public display.

Creating Showcase Badges

Decisions must be made about when to badge a showcase opportunity. Not all
showcase opportunities merit issuing a badge, and not every artifact presented in a
showcase earns a Showcase badge.
Guidelines for creating showcase badges:

Have clear evidence and specifications that the showcased artifact exceeds
expectations and criteria.
Limit the number of badges (e.g. the best in show).
Badges should reinforce the role-based aspects of the accomplishment
(e.g. The Young Author Badge).