Reflection 7

Capture:

This week I'd like to reflect on how skill sets, divided up and awarded as badges, are my favorite way of measuring achievement and learning.  

Analysis:

I love small steps. Each small step you take up a staircase brings you that much closer to the next level. Small steps make huge leaps more manageable. In learning new skills sets with badges it's the same way. A skill set is what I consider a full 'set' of badges for any given subject. In the analogy of the stairs, the 'next level' is a full skill set and each individual badge is a 'stair'. Making individual badges basic, small and accessible steps toward achieving a skill set allows students to constantly feel successful. As the basic skills are taught, similar to Gong's exponential learning, they can be internalized, applied and passed on quicker. Skill sets are a great way to track progress. When applying for a job employers don't ask, "Hey, what'd you learn in your 8th grade history class" or "Did you memorize the periodic table in 10th grade?". Employers are interested in your skill sets. What can you DO? What are you good at? If there was a way to connect mainstream education with the concept of skill set based achievement, the transition from high school to college and out into the workforce would be much smoother. For example, if the skill set method was implemented when children were in elementary school for skills like design, computer programming, management, etc. students could begin to experience, on a more basic level obviously, skills that they could build on through high school, college and then the workforce. I'm not suggesting, however, that we starve children of their childhood's either. The skills taught in elementary school would allow them to be as creative and imaginative as ever. With the skill-set approach, innovation could take place at an exponential pace as students begin to understand the basic of real-world skills early on.    



Action:

In my class I would like to implement the skill-set/badge approach. If I had a way to do it, I would love to reinvent the entire education system to gear towards this idea of skill-set based learning and assessment.