From Badges to Bachelor's: College Credit Where Credit Is Due

• In Event: From Badges to Bridges: How Digital Micro-Credentials Support Collaboration, Partnership, and Learning Across Contexts

Abstract

With a robust learning ecosystem, a youth serving organization and a higher education institution are connecting local opportunities and digital badges to free, high quality college credits. These two partner organizations have worked together to identify a set of playlists and badges that could be awarded credit equivalency through the process of prior learning assessment. Prior learning assessment comprises the processes and practices of determining if knowledge, skills, and abilities gained in a variety of settings may warrant consideration of college credit. For this work, the higher education institution used the Global Learning Qualifications Framework (GLQF) to determine course equivalency, evaluating playlists developed by the youth serving organization, scoring rubrics, and samples of student submissions. As a result, 36 playlists and badges were identified to count toward 19 course credit equivalencies. This canonical set comprises career readiness, design, and coding playlists and badges.

Mode of Inquiry
This summer, the team is conducting a pilot of this work with One Summer Chicago, Chicago’s summer youth employment program. The goal of this pilot is to understand how to engage and support young people along the pathway toward college credit. For example, we will explore three models of implementation of this work: (a) a very guided and structured environment with sequenced playlists and heavy guidance from a mentor or coach, (b) an environment in which a set of playlists are to be completed, but there is no imposed sequence or schedule, and there is access to a mentor or coach as needed, and (c) less structured environments in which young people can choose which playlists they want to complete with no time constraints. We are also studying how to deliver ‘nudges’ (Thaler & Sunstein, 2008) to encourage engagement in the playlists.

Results/Significance
The value of this work is that it fundamentally breaks the singular control of schools in defining learning that counts. Now young people can participate in robust experiences in summer youth employment, afterschool programs, entrepreneurship experiences and more that occur anywhere, anytime while simultaneously building their work and college portfolios. Such flexibility enables us the opportunity to redesign and reimagine pathways to social mobility that are grounded in the needs and interests of each young person. It also brings the possibility of college and a meaningful career closer to our young people, enabling them to see that their learning experiences can build a clear and immediate path toward higher education. While there have been prior isolated examples of translating badges to higher education credit and/or admissions, this is the first example of doing so at a large scale.

Authors

• Girlie C. Delacruz, Southern New Hampshire University

• Connie Yowell, Southern New Hampshire University

• Megan Stiles-Madel, Southern New Hampshire University

• Mustafa Safia, Southern New Hampshire University