Course Badging Pilot Initiative
Role: Consultant, Designer, Developer
Tools: Blackboard, Blackboard badges, Mozilla Open Badges
Process: Our university required first-semester students to take an online learning course to help them master basic skills with Blackboard, Microsoft Office applications, time management, and communication. I worked with the content team to determine how we could pilot the use of digital badges to improve student outcomes. We determined that the single biggest predictor of student success and retention at the university was simply submitting assignments. Therefore, teaching students to submit assignments on time was the major goal for the badging initiative.
Using Blackboard badges, I designed and developed a series of badges to award to students when they complete all assignments for a module. Badges were gifted to students with a message congratulating and encouraging them on their efforts. Additional badges were created to reward students for excellent grades on two benchmark assignments; a time management practice assignment and an online learning paper submission.
We implemented the badged version of the course in seven teacher sections of the course for three consecutive terms. After three terms of testing, we compared the performance of students in the pilot sections against normal sections and found a significant improvement in learner grades and key skills like time management and turning assessments in on time.