Digital Badges Forging Connections between Informal and Higher Education
Author: Martin, Wendy
Date: 2020-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Recognition (Achievement),Informal Education,Higher Education,Minority Group Students,After School Programs,Evaluation Methods,Credentials,High School Students,Partnerships in Education,College Admission,Student Attitudes

Many high-quality out-of-school-time (OST) programs enable youth from economically disadvantaged backgrounds to gain skills and knowledge in science, technology, engineering, art, and math (STEAM, Afterschool Alliance, 2015; National Research Council, 2011); engage in authentic practices that relate to their own interests; and connect with their peers and their own cultures (Bell et al., 2009; Ito et al., 2013). Since Black and Latinx youth are twice as likely to attend afterschool programming as their White counterparts (Afterschool Alliance, 2015), OST programs can address inequality of opportunities to some extent. However, to fully realize their potential to broaden STEAM participation in higher education and the workforce, OST STEAM programs need not only to help participants gain knowledge and skills, but also to give them tools for communicating their accomplishments to college and career gatekeepers (Fishman et al., 2018). The past five to ten years have seen several initiatives that use digital badges as tangible representations of OST learning (Davis &amp; Singh, 2015). These efforts have had a mixed track record; their impact is related to the quality of the program design as much as to the badges themselves (Abramovich et al., 2013; Hickey &amp; Shenke, 2019). Research demonstrates that digital badges can be effective in documenting the skills and accomplishments of low-income youth when OST programs partner with the education system to ensure that the badges are given real value, such as providing course credits toward graduation and connecting OST inititatives with broadly recognized school programs (Rennie Center for Education Research &amp; Policy, 2018). Digital badges can serve as alternative credentials for college applications only if those who evaluate the applications recognize the badging system (Fishman et al., 2018). This recognition requires negotiation, translation, and partnership among stakeholders in informal, formal, and higher education (Itow &amp; Hickey, 2016). This article is about a collaboration between Mouse, a national nonprofit that provides formal and informal creative technology programs, and Parsons School of Design in New York City established a badge endorsement partnership in a program called Investigating Digital Badges as Alternative Credentials to Broaden STEM Participation Among Underrepresented Youth. This digital badge system was designed to give young people language and evidence to demonstrate to higher education gatekeepers the value of what they learned in Mouse's Design League program. The project formalized procedures through which Parsons faculty co-created the badges and Parsons administrators endorsed them. This endorsement signals to other colleges that Design League meets Parsons's criteria for a high-quality digital design program, similar to a pre-college program. In the process, program developers learned what kinds of content and experience to include in Design League to help prepare young people to attend a college like Parsons.