Learning Badges – What are badges in learning?

A sense of accomplishment for participants once they have successfully finished all prerequisites for the online learning courses. However, how do we as an organizer encourage them to do so? With learning badges, your students can receive incentives by participating in a badge-based learning experience. This encourages learning new things, obtaining additional badges, and evaluating your own performance in relation to other participants. 

Let’s delve more deeply into the what, why, and how?

 

What are Learning Badges?

A concept or initiative called Learning Badges is implemented to motivate and engage students, employees, or the broader population. Learning badges are frequently confused with gamification, which is merely badges obtained through program elements that imitate games. 

It measure:

1. A learner’s progress
2. Improving their participation
3. Encouraging further development

whereas gamified badges are awarded through parts of the program that resemble games. 

Why are learning badges issued?

Supporting students, especially in the online educational setting, employing innovations and online educational measures has been at the top of teaching and learning objectives to enhance learners’ educational experiences Utilizing teaching frameworks like badges through online platform platforms could improve the way that students interact with the training, helping them to understand their progress and drive them to improve in order to earn a badge as a reward.

Schools, academic institutions, businesses, community organizations, non-profits, event planners, and industries devoted to professional growth have all adopted the chance presented by learning badges to encourage their users to continue with their programs.

How might learners’ motivation be increased through learning badges?

Giving out learning badges can help learners who are lacking in motivation, which is one of the main reasons they discontinue a course or training. Since it increase learner engagement, self-directed learning, and real-time interaction to increase learners’ commitment to activities, the effects of their application in educational settings like classrooms and workplaces may be accurately determined. 

In fact, if we encourage students to go a little farther in their learning process and add incentives like learning badges to it, it might do wonders for them to improve their learning progress. this is due to the fact that, in addition to presenting certificates or other forms of verification of their expertise, learning badges offer learners an additional means of getting recognition for their abilities and accomplishments and sharing them with employers.

It can also be used to create career paths for people, motivate and develop talent within organizations, and create pathways to support people as they work toward their educational objectives. 

But what good is implementing anything if you aren’t going to use the right approach? The following are some strategies to use while issuing badges:

Criteria:

For you to retain the learner, choosing the appropriate criteria for the intended party could make a world of difference. Consider selecting a learning progress criterion that will pique their curiosity and encourage them to work toward it.

 

Parameters:

Take the opportunity to establish criteria or standards that will allow them to advance toward earning a learner’s badge. Too easy and too difficult would cause them to lose interest or make it more difficult to continue. Try to keep the difficulty levels in the range of easy, moderate, and hard, or distribute them equally.

The appropriate number:

Anything in excess is worthless! If a learner is constantly adding badges to their collection, they may grow weary of it and stop putting in an effort. Therefore, in addition to thinking about the prerequisites for earning the badge, make sure it is awarded to the right criteria and at the appropriate intervals.

Collaborative effort:

It is used for self-directed and to monitor progress on one’s record, but they are pointless if they don’t align for collaboration. To earn a learning badge, make sure that students are working collaboratively with their peers or the platform overall.

Uniqueness:

To ensure that the learner benefits fully from their badge, try to cover as many fundamental competencies as you can. Ensure that the badge obtained covers a variety of learning opportunities rather than just one training component.