Badge claims: Creativity, evidence and the curated learning journey

Abstract

As educators we value skills, experience knowledge in the academic discipline and our learners. We also value the role that creativity plays in developing a sense of becoming and how important connections and validation are in the learning journey. In this chapter, we explore the relationship between creativity, digital portfolios, and digital badges; specifically, we identify how these tools are adding value to learning and how they can enact action from the learner and contribute to learning across a life time. Digital badges add a significant layer to a learner’s growth when integrated into the design and implementation of the learning experience. Digital badges indicate achievement, skills, and knowledge at a granular level and convey aspects of a learner’s identity. According to Singer (Modes of creativity, MIT Press, 2011), “Creativity results from collecting items in one’s own experience and then transforming them in a practical manner that is personal to oneself” (p. 27). Thus, Creativity allows us to see how relevant this meta-cognitive action of reflection is to making badge claims through the curation of evidence in digital portfolios. Utilizing immersive design and design thinking approaches to develop authentic contextual portfolio strategies for learners allows for c(C)reativity to emerge and allow for human centered, experiential, creative problem solving.