Soft Certification
of
Participant Engagement and Task Completion
in
COIL-enhanced courses
through
Open Badges
Mirjam Hauck, SUNY/COIL
Teresa MacKinnon, University of Warwick/UK
● Challenges of Online Intercultural Exchange (OIE) well documented
(e.g. Guth, Helm & O’Dowd, 2012; MacKinnon, 2013)
● Complexity of shared accreditation explained (Aguirre & Quemada, 2012)
● Added value of participation in OIE accepted
● Potential of OIE to serve goal of virtual mobility in HE acknowledged
How do we support motivation that leads to sustained
participation and interaction?
→ Learning from MOOCs and NOOCs!
● network-, task-, content-based approaches (Lane, 2012)
● task-based MOOCs similar to Online Intercultural Exchange
→ Badging as a way of
● recognising achievement
● driving engagement
Cross and Galley (2012)
Typology of badges
5
O’Dowd and Ware (2009) Taxonomy of Tasks:
●
Information Exchange Tasks where participants provide their
partners with information for example about their personal backgrounds
and their home cultures.
●
Comparison and Analysis Tasks requiring learners to exchange
information but also to go a step further and carry out comparisons or
critical analyses of cultural products (e.g. books, surveys, films and
newspaper articles).
●
Collaborative Tasks requiring participants not only to exchange and
compare information but also to work together to produce a joint artefact
or reach a joint conclusion.
#Clavier project:
● large scale virtual exchange Warwick/Clermont
Ferrand, France
● professional development for staff
● connected educators extending to Poland,
Sweden, Japan, US, Finland...#clavedu G+
community
“...the future belongs to those who learn to work
together with other groups without regard to location,
heritage, and national and cultural difference”
(Grandin & Hedderich, 2009)
Benefit of the badge
Role of Badge
Creator (awarder)
1. As a motivator /
A solution to the 'motivation issue' for open courses that have no formal assessment (or at least teacher
2. To promote engagement /
marked qualification-related assessment). The drop-out rate for such courses is much higher than for
traditional courses (even up to 90-95% of registrations).
4. As a meaning maker /
Badges can help describe what is important and can be constructively aligned with learning outcomes.
5. Signifier of learning objectives
Achievement of a badge may be seen as evidence that an outcome has also been achieved
8. As a valuer
Both the existence of a badge and uptake of it by learners, can help confer value to something that is clearly
import to the awarder (otherwise why create the badge)
9. As a symbol of identity /
Helps tie the learner to the awarder and in so doing deepens the association between them and others holding
10. As a means of association
the badge. For social or political groups for whom the goal of a qualification/award is not the primary purpose,
badges can provide shared goals (or other foci) around which badge-seekers and badge-achievers can
associate.
Towards a framework:
● based on an incentive-centered approach
● starts with task categories (O’Dowd & Ware, 2009)
● suggests positioning for badge types in order to
optimise engagement
● emphasises meaningful activity
● most badges are types 1 and 2
A proposed framework for open badges in OIE
Picture by Astris1
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3
Badges to address pitfalls in OIE:
Challenges:
How badges can help:
Task design often complex
Positioning of badges can make
learning design choices and
intended learning outcomes explicit
Multiple factors impact upon
success of OIE
Badge award can reflect facets of
success
Gaps in tutors’ OIE-related
competences
Badge pathways help tutors identify
professional development needs
Insights gained from implementation:
● Contextual
● Learning design
● Technical
Contextual
Awareness of badges not widespread in Europe.
Importance of communicating badge schema.
Example
Learning design
Importance of establishing the purpose of the OIE and
embedding in curriculum
Align task sequences with learning outcomes in order
to position badges appropriately
Allow time for support, guidance and dissemination
Technical
Badge schema needs central place on platform
Award notifications should be immediate, establishing a clear
link between activity and award
Robust technology to provide reliable, sustainable award
Always pilot in your context
Preliminary conclusions:
Badges provide a route to the acquisition of complex skills, confidence builds
competence.
Badge collection should not become the means and the end, but remain the
means to an end, namely enhanced learner motivation.
Badges can help to balance extrinsic and intrinsic motivation.
Badge selection and positioning must be informed by learning design and not
the other way round.
Badges can gamify learning but should be chosen and placed with care to
support learner ownership of learning progress.
Thank you!
Hauck, M. & MacKinnon, T. (in press). A new approach to assessing
Online Intercultural Exchange: soft certification of participant
engagement and task execution. In: R. O’Dowd and T. Lewis (Eds.)
Online Intercultural Exchange. Routledge.
@sunycoilcenter
@warwicklanguage