- What is a Digital Badge?
- Digital Badge Standards
- What Are the Benefits of a Digital Badge?
- How Do Students Keep and Share Their Digital Badges?
- What is a Pathway?
- SkillsHouse CTE Curriculum and Pathways
- Where Can I Find Out About the Different Pathways?
- How Do Students Share Their Achievements?
- What Does This Cost?
- Have Any Questions?
- Feedback From an Educator
What is a Digital Badge?
A digital badge is a smart, simple, and visual way of recognising non-accredited learning.
It helps the learner to understand what skills they have developed and lets them share their achievement on their CV, with an employer or prospective employer, or via social media. Digital badges provide motivation and reward for learning and are a digital marker of achievement commonly used to recognise skills and competencies.
Digital Badge Standards
All our digital badges are independently quality assured by The RSA (The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce), badge standard.
The RSA has created a badging standard describing four competency levels gained with each digital badge. These descriptors help badge creators and earners explain a badge’s level or pathway through a learning journey.
The RSA badging standard has four layers, each with a specific purpose:
Engage
This shows that a learner has learned about a new topic. For example, they attended a talk, exhibition or open day and gained a basic level of understanding in a new subject area.
Participate
This shows that a learner has interacted with learning by participating in a learning experience. For example, they attended a workshop, training or club requiring some hands-on interaction, or the learning they undertook required some degree of self-direction.
Demonstrate
This shows that a learner has applied knowledge in a real-world environment to gain experience and get feedback. For example, they took part in a competition, work experience or project, or participated in an assessed learning experience.
Lead
This shows that a learner has embedded knowledge in different contexts and influenced others. For example, they join an ambassador or leadership programme and can take their subject knowledge to others.
What Are the Benefits of a Digital Badge?
- A digital badge is a smart, simple, and visual way of recognising your student’s skills
- Badges help learners articulate the skills, knowledge and experience they develop through your activities
- Badges are verifiable: Prospective employers or educational institutions can identify who issued the badge, when and where it was earned, and what criteria were used to earn it
- Badges are portable: Individuals can access their badges indefinitely and share them via social media or embed them in a resume for prospective or current employers or postsecondary institutions
- Badges give students the language to better tell their stories by clearly spelling out the activity they have carried out and the attitudes they have gained along the way, while giving them the language that employers understand. What is particularly useful about this is highlighting transferrable skills that may not – at first glance – be seen as relevant
- Digital badges contain verified metadata. They describe a student’s learning and skills gained, and the process required to earn them
What is a Pathway?
A pathway is a collection of badges in a particular industry sector. These pathways align to further study or opportunities in early careers. A pathway helps students to progress through the steps needed to reach a goal. The motivation through a pathway of learning is provided by breaking it down into steps, which could each be awarded with a digital badge. Some pathways lead to a specific goal such as further learning, work experience or a job interview.
SkillsHouse CTE Curriculum and Pathways
The SkillsHouse CTE Curriculum and Pathways Team provide specialist curriculum consultancy enabling education providers to embed the Bradford Careers and Technical Education (CTE) Framework; the practice of teaching specific career-related skills from primary to secondary through to post-secondary education.
This is achieved by co-designing and delivering sector-based programs of learning in partnership with employers which are embedded into the education establishment's subject curriculum to develop learner's understanding and progression into high-demand sectors and occupations.
CTE Learners progress through sector-based programmes of learning, bringing their academic studies to life to gain industry-led credentials, and recognition of their skills and knowledge through employer approved digital skills badges.
Where Can I Find Out About the Different Pathways?
You can find out what pathways are available in the Bradford area by visiting the discover page on the Navigatr website. You can also search by the subject or industry you are interested in or even in other parts of the country.
To see the pathways and badges available for Bradford District click on the link below for more information.
How Do Students Share Their Achievements?
Once they have a Navigatr account, any badges they earn can be shared via social media or added to their LinkedIn profile at the touch of button. They can also embed them in a CV for prospective or current employers or postsecondary institutions.
What Does This Cost?
It is completely free of charge for your students to create and use their own Navigatr account
There is no cost for your students to earn and be issued badges by CTE.
If your school or college wishes to write and issue their own badges, then your organisation would have to purchase their own Navigatr package, and they have several contract packages depending on how many badges you want to create. There are also several other organisations who provide this service. For more information see the link below or alternatively contact CTE for further information.
Have Any Questions?
Please get in touch with the SkillsHouse Careers and Technical Education team by using the Contact Us form
Feedback From an Educator
“It is always great to work alongside Danny and the SkillsHouse Team.
The presentation to our students on the digital badges and the Navigatr system was great.
It helped the students understand some of the missing skills that employers are looking for, how they will develop these skills, and how they will have the digital badges to prove them.
These digital badges will help set our students above the competition to gain their dream careers.
During the presentation, the students were all easily able to log on to the Navigatr system and achieve their first badge which was brilliant.”
Faye McFadyean -Travel & Tourism Lecturer Bradford College