Personalized workplace learning: An exploratory study on digital badging within a teacher professional development program

Abstract

To provide customized workplace learning opportunities, a digital badge system was designed by a university, governmental agency and national professional association to support teachers' implementation of professional development (PD). Teacher Learning Journeys (TLJ) is an approach that allows for teachers to customize their PD experience to their workplace and make decisions about what PD they need based on their expertise and interests. The digital badging provided and assessed experiences in online PD. Using a theoretical framework that focused on decision making and customization as part of personalization, researchers conducted a theory-driven thematic analysis on teachers' TLJ artifacts (goal statements, interviews and reflective activity logs). Data came from 36 teachers who completed 154 PD activities over a 3-month period. A case study was developed from an in-depth analysis of eight teachers' artifacts and interviews. Using TLJ as a PD tool, teachers made decisions when selecting learning goals they identified as personally relevant. Teachers customized the level of assessment and the specific content depth to personalize the PD training for workplace constraints. This project informs future research aiming to understand how personalized learning activities support teachers and other professional learners in a variety of workplaces.Digital badges, also known as microcredentials, are online representations of learning experiences and activities that tell a story about the learner's education and skills. Frequently represented by a graphic or icon, badges offer a socially constructed and valued encapsulation of experiences through a variety of stored metadata, such as the issuer, description and evaluation criteria for learning. Through this rich metadata, digital badges offer transparency and depth into the learning and achievements of the learners which can then be reviewed by others (Abramovich, Schunn & Higashi, 2013;Halavais, 2012). While relatively new, badges are slowly gaining adoption in traditional educational structures. Abramovich et al (2013) studied the role digital badges played on motivation in primary school students and found impact on both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. They also found that effects of digital badges varied across learner ability and badge design. Hickey and Soylu (2012) explored digital badges with higher education students, and their findings suggest digital badges can act as a valuable tool. Because badges

Perceptions and Uses of Digital Badges for Professional Learning Development in Higher Education

“…Digital badges are a form of micro-credentialing, which provides a way to recognize and evidence accomplishments acquired through informal learning experiences at a more granular level than is captured by courses or degrees (Gamrat et al 2014). In higher education they are therefore useful in capturing learning that might otherwise go unrecognized through formal academic accreditation processes (Devedzic and Jovanovic 2015).…”

“…Often compared to a visual narrative of achievements, micro-credentialing through the use of digital badges allows individuals to document their professional learning development attained through stand-alone workshops and seminars. People select and sequence the informal (non-credit) learning opportunities they want in order to create their own personal learning pathway (Cucchiarra et al 2014;Gamrat et al 2014). …”

A Structural Equation Model of Determinants of the Perceived Impact of Teachers’ Professional Development—The Abu Dhabi Application

“…Recent studies that focused on the professional development of teachers tried to combine a variety of constructs that included subject matter and pedagogical knowledge, teacher characteristics and personality, teachers' beliefs, teaching style, teacher appraisal and feedback, class environment and school climate, and other teacher-related variables (AL-Qahtani, 2015;Gamrat, Zimmerman, Dudek, & Peck, 2014;Hemphill, 2015).…”

Demystifying Learning Analytics in Personalised Learning

“…In a more advanced side of personalised learning is the PLE, or personalised learning environment. Multiple studies has been done relating to it, including the usage of Personalised Visual Narratives to enhance students' learning engagement [27]; the use of Concept Maps in PLE to subdue students' learning difficulties [28]; the use of PLE to advocate learners' empowerment towards their own learning process and progress [29] and the use of microcredentials offered in PLE for teachers' professional advancement [30]. An element that should be noted is within the technologically inclined personalised learning environment, there is a need to monitor the students' details and progress, which becomes the main function of learning analytics.…”