Soft Skill Development Using Open Badges

Casey D. Wright Daniel L. Randall

BYU

Image by photosteve101. Used under CC BY License.

#UtahATD

The Need for Soft Skills

Image copyrighted by Fox Searchlight Pictures. Used under the laws governing Fair Use of copyrighted material.

Girls only like guys who

have skills!

– Napoleon Dynamite

“Personal attributes that enable someone to interact effectively and harmoniously with other people.” -The Oxford Dictionary (2013).

Soft Skills Defined

Image by thetaxhaven. Used under CC BY.

“Personality traits, goals, motivations, and preferences that are valued in the labor market, in school, and in many other domains.” (Heckman and Kautz, 2012, p. 451).

Soft Skills Defined

Image by Kevin Dooley. Used under CC BY.

202 out of 460 executives feel that soft skills is where the biggest gap in workforce skills are (Adecco Staffing, 2013).

ID Professionals spend 35% of their time engaged in soft skill activities versus 30% in actual design work (Cox & Osguthorpe, 2002).

Other

Soft Skills

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Soft Skill Activities Instructional Design

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Time Spent as ID Professional

Why Soft Skill Badges?

Graduate Program Description

• Learning outcomes to develop soft skills in graduate students.

• Display skills gained.

• A lot of energy has been placed on developing our design skills but more needs to be done to develop soft skills.

IDT

• Concrete evidence

• Evidence-based outcome

• Professional development

Why Soft Skill Badges?

IDT

What are “Open Badges”?

Images from OpenBadges.org

Merit Badges and Digital Badges

Boy Scout Merit Badges

Digital Badge

- Acknowledge accomplishment - Display skills gained - Motivation - Enable feedback/teaching from adult mentors Typically not sharable -

Acknowledge accomplishment - Motivation -

Gamification - Enable feedback on specific skills -

Open Badges

Open Badges

Webmaker Open Badges

- Uses Open Badge Infrastructure (OBI) - Criteria and Evidence links - Display badges via web - Motivation

Awarded Automatically -

Display skills gained - Motivation -

Gamification -

Mozilla Backpack

Backpack Collection

Multiple collections can be created. Collections can remain private or can be made public and shared.

Open Badge Information

Design of Open Badges for Soft Skills

Image by Jordanhill School D&T Dept. Used under CC BY.

Mozilla’s Webmaker badges plan used the “constellation” concept in which smaller

badges are earned and added together to receive a higher level badge.

Badges image adapted from the Mozilla Open Badges Project. Retrieved from http://erinknight.com/post/29830945702/webmaker-badges on 11/9/12.

Early Badge System by Mozilla

Google Sites

Personal Tech

Choice 1

Choice 2

Choice 3

IPT EdTec Badge System

Student selected Internet Communication Technology

Student selected Multimedia Technology

Student selected Personal Technologies

Additional Concepts

Mobile Learn

Internet Safety

Copy right

iMovie

Lower level badges are not issued for these projects

Project level badge not issued for these

additional concepts

Educational Technology

Course Level Badge

Project Level Badge

Lower Level Badges

IDT Badge System

idt.wix.com/home (Prototype)

Official Site Coming Soon

(LearnTech.org)

Project Management

(Brill, Bishop, & Walker, 2006)

Professional Communication

(Brill, Bishop, & Walker, 2006)

Possible Solution

5) Badge Issued: If accepted, results of evaluation reviewed by administrators who issue badge.

4) Review: Documentation and checklist evaluated. Based on rubric, a recommendation to accept or reject.

3) Rubric Completed: All parties submit requested information (checklist, other documentation).

2) Contact: Dept. secretary contacts nominee, supervisor, and a peer to request evidence via checklist.

1) Nominate: Student (self), peer, or faculty begins process by submitting nomination form

Badge Issuer

Available on Github

msedev/badges

General Soft Skills

Design Process

Other

-Project Management

-Professional Comm.

- Teamwork/Collaboration*

- Any others?*

- ADDIE

- Agile

- CPS*

- Design Thinking*

- TRIZ*

- Any others?*

- Fluid Intelligence*

- Diversity understanding*

- Psychological capital?*

- Business ethics?*

- Any others?*

*In progress or planned

Available Badges

IDT

Future Design Iterations

• Produce meaningful badges.

• Scaling assessment.

• Maintaining accuracy of rubrics and tutorials as tools evolve and change.

• Creating a smart dashboard management tool for people to log in and track their progression on badges (ala Khan Academy).

IDT

Future Research Considerations

• Employer perception of open badges?

• What populations can best be served by soft skill badges?

• Student motivation. How many students will go above and beyond to earn badges? extra badges? Post-class badges?

IDT

Casey D. Wright – casey.wright@byu.edu

Daniel L. Randall – dan.randall26@gmail.com

Coming soon: TechLearn.org

Contact us with Questions

Thank You #UtahATD