Badges and Badging in the Classroom

NWP’s interest in badging and micro-credentials grew out of many leaders’ observation and experience with badging in their own practice. Beginning with the Open Badge Project, led by the Mozilla Foundation, both connected learning programs and individual classroom educators began experimenting with the idea of linking specific tasks, skills, or accomplishments to visible markers like badges.

Here we collect some of the reflections of those early leaders whose work with badges reflected the experimentation and creativity that informed the beginning of the movement. Free from requirements of large-scale platforms and external assessment, these pieces demonstrate how the ‘badging process” can be a catalyst for curricular design thinking.