So.... I walk
up to my neighbor's door- "Knock. Knock." And this semi-cranky old
man comes to the door demanding to know "What are you selling now?"
As I open my bag I pull out the order form and several brochures or pamphlets
of some kind that have pictures on them and hand them over,
"Cookies!" I say, "Cookies!" By this time, his cranky frown
that I'm sure was used as the model for Jeff Dunham's puppet Walter turns into
a happy smile like he just saw the Jimmy Dean breakfast sandwich sun.
"Well then, I guess I'll take 3 boxes of each. How about that?" I
begin to do everything short of giving him a hug (hugging strangers is not ok)
because knows that I am 100 boxes away from winning the grand prize in my
troop. I wanted that cookie badge.
Badges....Badges…..oh
wait!
Badges in
education are somewhat different than badges for selling Girl Scout Cookies
(btw, I sold 465 boxes that yearJ). I think badges could make having
prerequisites and graduation requirements not be as boring as they sound. If
you have badges for certain skills then you also can incorporate the art
department of the school to create the badges your school will use and the
students can contribute to the look of the badges and how they’re displayed. In
addition to a good grade, having the badge to show that a student completed
something could be a big deal to some students who aren’t high achievers in
every subject. I relate badges to the
academic letter that I got in high school after having three semesters of at
least a 3.5 gpa, but I didn’t have a letterman’s jacket so right now I have no
idea where my letter is. At the same
time, Badges could possibly motivate students who don’t normally participate in
a lot of activities to get more involved with school whether its sports or
volunteer things. Badges could be used for those types of things too! I think
there are a lot of things that badges could be used for but at the same time- I
don’t think I know enough about them to want to incorporate them into my
classroom but they’re definitely a good idea and worth future investigation on
my part and on the part of school administrators.
Destiney,
ReplyDeleteI think testing out swapping grades for badges in your own classroom is a great suggestion. If it works on the local level, then it can be adopted more widely!
I am impressed by your Girl Scout cookie salesmanship. I can tell you that I never sold that many cookies when I was a girl scout - but badges for other things certainly motivated me to do more than I would have if they weren't offered. I think one possible pitfall of switching to badges is that kids who like the grade system won't like the badge system - for example, since badges are public, ones who don't earn badges might feel inferior to their friends. Artsy badges are cool - but some kids may prefer the clearer feedback of a letter grade. I also think that badges might come to function exactly the same as grades - eventually kids won't work just to earn them.
Nice, thoughtful post! Looking forward to more. Take care!!
Destiney,
ReplyDeleteI fully understand badges yet, but I think the idea of teaching content through real world activities is powerful. Like the school in New York that we read about in Shari's class, the one in which the students developed a real world architecture project and a renowned architect came in to see there presentation and give them feedback - This type of real world performance coupled with badging seems like it would be very powerful. Also the act of documenting your work in writing and with artifacts, a visual portfolio of what the student has created, seems so much more engaging than imagining a project and writing about it, but never getting the chance to dig in and do it. Deep learning would be taking place, and students would never forget the big picture, though may still forget something of the smaller details that went into the process. I'm not sure how exactly that would play out in the French classroom. In the English classroom it might lead to something like a student organizing a poetry slam competition. Students could begin by attending a poetry slam held at a local university or in some other public forum. They could interview the organizers, and then develop their own Slam. They would have to go through the whole real world process of advertising, reserving a space, raising funds to pay for that space, perhaps getting sponsors, auditioning performers, or deciding whether it might be best to just have an open stage. They could document the process both in writing and with visual and audio artifacts. It sounds like an awesome idea with many different reading, writing, speaking and reflecting opportunities, as well as plenty of possibilities for both formative and summative assessment. I don't know, just an idea, but if this were the type of work behind a badge, I could see badges as being very effective. But like Catherine said, some students like to see a letter grade.