Investigating Digital Badges as Alternative Credentials to Broaden STEM Participation Among Underrepresented Youth

该项目将开发和研究一种名为“设计联盟徽章组合”的创新认证流程。 （数字徽章，就像在童子军中获得的徽章一样，是在线管理和管理的成就或技能的有效指标，可以在非正式或正式环境中获得。）这一过程将为服务不足的年轻人提供一种技术支持的方法，让他们在校外项目中以对个人有意义的方式展示他们的信息通信技术 (ICT) 成就，并满足高等教育机构的期望。数字徽章系统有潜力成为替代的认证方法。从每个学年秋季开始，高中参与者每周在课外项目中进行几个小时的聚会，教授以人为本的设计原则和实践。年轻人确定了他们想在设计项目中解决的两到三个社会问题。在接下来的几个月里，他们学会采访将从该技术中受益的最终用户，并集思广益并制作技术解决方案原型。他们使用 CAD 软件、3D 打印机、微处理器、简单电机、建筑材料、手动工具和其他设计技术来创建原型，在某些情况下还编写原型。学生还将用户、同行和专家的反馈整合到他们的原型中。项目合作伙伴（教育发展中心、Mouse、DreamYard Project 和帕森斯设计学院）将根据现任和前任设计联盟青年参与者的意见，重新设计现有的设计联盟徽章系统，并正式制定帕森斯管理人员（最终还有其他高等教育机构）认可徽章作为其本科课程入学资格的程序。该项目将调查一组至少参与了构建数字徽章组合的部分活动的 11 年级高中生是否比未参与其中的一组学生更有可能对 ICT 作为职业或学术机会表现出兴趣、坚持 ICT 相关的高等教育和就业追求，并设想自己在不久的将来从事这些职业。该项目将分三个阶段进行设计和研究：（1）项目扩展、迭代开发、形成性测试和文档化； （二）对研究仪器和分析方法进行充分的可行性测试； (3) 试点测试设计联盟徽章组合的创建是否以及如何显示出支持代表性不足的年轻人坚持 STEM 和 ICT 追求的承诺。 项目研究将为研究和开发社区贡献有关替代认证方法的知识，特别是针对服务不足的年轻人。研究结果将有助于确定在数字徽章和其他替代认证系统激增之际，连接校外学习活动和大学招生流程的数字徽章组合系统是否显示出作为提高代表性不足的年轻人坚持 STEM 活动的工具的前景。项目合作伙伴之间协作过程的记录将使非正式学习组织和高等教育机构之间的未来合作能够创建徽章系统，该系统可用于为个人有意义的经历分配有意义的证书，进入大学和职业道路。 该项目由学生和教师创新技术体验 (ITEST) 计划资助，该计划支持加深对最佳实践、计划要素、背景和流程的理解的项目，有助于吸引学生学习并培养对 STEM、信息和通信技术 (ICT)、计算机科学以及相关 STEM 内容和职业的兴趣。

The project will develop and research an innovative credentialing process called Design League Badge Portfolios. (A digital badge, like a badge earned in a scout troop, is a validated indicator of accomplishment or skill that is housed and managed online and can be earned in informal or formal environments.) The process will give underserved youth a technology-supported method for presenting their Information Communication Technology (ICT) achievements in an out-of-school program in ways that are personally meaningful and that address the expectations of higher education institutions. Digital badge systems have the potential to become alternative credentialing methods. Beginning in the fall of each school year, high school participants meet weekly for several hours in an afterschool program that teaches them human-centered design principles and practices. The youth identify two or three social problems they would like to take on in a design project. Over the following months, they learn to interview end users who will benefit from the technology, and to brainstorm and prototype technological solutions. They use CAD software, 3D printers, microprocessors, simple motors, building materials, hand tools, and other design technologies to create, and in some cases code, their prototypes. Students also integrate user, peer, and expert feedback into their prototypes. The project partners (Educational Development Center, Mouse, DreamYard Project, and Parsons School of Design) will redesign the existing Design League badge system, with input from current and former Design League youth participants, and formalize a procedure for Parsons administrators (and eventually other higher education institutions) to endorse badges as admissions credentials in its undergraduate programs. The project will investigate whether a group of 11th-grade high school students who engage in at least some of the activities for building a digital badge portfolio will be more likely than a comparison group of students who do not to express interest in ICT as a career or academic opportunity, to persist in ICT-related higher education and employment pursuits, and to envision themselves in those careers in the near future. The project will implement design and research in three phases: (1) Program Expansion, Iterative Development, Formative Testing, and Documentation; (2) Feasibility Testing of the research instruments and analysis methods adequately; and (3) Pilot Testing of whether and how the creation of Design League badge portfolios shows promise of supporting underrepresented youth to persist in STEM and ICT pursuits. Project research will contribute knowledge to research and development communities about alternative credentialing methods, particularly for underserved youth. The research findings will help determine whether digital badge portfolio systems that bridge out-of-school learning activities and the college admissions process show evidence of promise as tools to increase underrepresented youth persistence in STEM activities, at a time when digital badge and other alternative credentialing systems are proliferating. Documentation of the collaboration processes among project partners will enable future partnerships between informal learning organizations and higher education institutions to create badge systems that can used to assign meaningful credentials to personally meaningful experiences into college and career pathways. This project is funded by the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program that supports projects that build understandings of best practices, program elements, contexts and processes contributing to engaging students in learning and developing interest in STEM, information and communications technology (ICT), computer science, and related STEM content and careers.