Week 5a Questions: Badge Systems

1. Explain how educational badges work and their similarities to
Girl/Boy Scout badges and game-style badges.



2. Explain how badges are intended to motivate learners.





3. Explain how badges provide assessment, and how that improves learning.






4. From the paper: "we classified the badges awarded by the tutor into two distinct categories (Table 1): those indicating mastery of skills and those reflecting participation in the system. Prior testing had indicated the potential for badges to re-motivate students whose frustration level was increasing while using the tutor (Abramovich et al. 2011). Consequently, we theorized that badges awarded for participation, regardless of the quality of the user's performance, would provide increased motivation to all users. " 

Discuss how this specific design decision relates to what we have been 
discussing in class, especially in the diversity discussion.


5. Looking at the results, would you consider this a good system for
attempting to close academic gaps in performance, and why?





6. Analyze the Open Badge system and discuss how its use does or does 
not follow the principles put forth in the analysis of Khan Academy's
use of gamification.