Badges

Empowered Educator Badges and Micro-credential

Empowered EducatorThe successful completion of the Empowered Educator activities, which demonstrate achievement of the outcomes for each of the program modules, is recognized with six digital badges. In the context of the Empowered Educator program, educators attain badges as evidence of successfully achieving learning outcomes and completing the program. Through the successful completion of all six modules and receipt of badges, participants receive their capstone Empowered Educator Micro-credential, to congratulate and celebrate their determination to invest in their own personal and professional development.

This micro-credential represents over 35 hours of dedicated effort across six areas of focus in the Empowered Educator program. This educator has submitted evidence to demonstrate excellence as a teacher for learning, a curator, an experimenter, a technologist, a collaborator and a scholar. This evidence has been evaluated against the learning outcomes of the program outlined below.

Module Learning Outcomes

Click the accordion tabs to expand for more information about the outcomes and competencies for each module.

Teacher for Learning Module Outcomes

TeacherRecipients of the Teacher for Learning badge will have explored how we learn and what we can do to ensure learning environments are effective. They have considered strategies for designing significant learning experiences that are grounded in and informed by research principles that foster student learning in specific contexts.

Criteria Required for Badge Assessment – I have:

  • Identified a concept that is often misunderstood in my discipline and created an analogy to help make sense of it.
  • Created a concept map of a syllabus for a course I teach.
  • Practiced my note taking skills.
  • Brainstormed a list of “What’s in it for me?” from a student perspective.
  • Identified a concept in my discipline that is like driving a car and specified the component skills that are required to master this concept of skill.
  • Found a “nugget” and made it as meaningful as possible.
  • Conveyed a metaphor for teaching and learning.
  • Reflected on the module experience.

Technologist Module Outcomes

Technologist

Recipients of the  Technologist badge have demonstrated the ability to select, use, and integrate technologies in a way that supports, facilitates, and enriches learning experiences.

Criteria Required for Badge Assessment – I have:

  • Designed and developed an empathy map.
  • Identified a learner challenge.
  • Used the SECTIONS model to evaluate a tool.
  • Identified and explained the technology I selected.
  • Developed and refined a prototype of my technology-enabled learning activity or resource.
  • Shared my technology enabled activity or resource.
  • Reflected on the module experience.

Curator Module Outcomes

CuratorRecipients of the Curator badge have explored ways to curate from the learners’ perspective to create engaging, interactive, and open course materials. They are versed in Creative Commons and Copyright and have explored strategies to search for, find, and evaluate Open Education Resources (OER).

Criteria Required for Badge Assessment – I have:

  • Located and shared an openly licensed image and provided an explanation for how it was discovered.
  • Explored repositories to curate content and curated three (or more) OER to support learners’ understanding of an element or concept for a course.
  • Demonstrated my newly minted OER curation skills.
  • Used the CRAAP test to evaluate curated OER and reflected on how to use OER in discipline specific ways.
  • Reflected on the module experience.

Collaborator Module Outcomes

CollaboratorRecipients of the Collaborator badge will have explored tools for online collaborations and ways to create and extend professional and personal learning networks (PLNs) through collaborations within, across, and between disciplines.

Criteria Required for Badge Assessment- I have:

  • Created a Twitter account and explored how to extend my Personal/Professional Learning Network (PLN) by engaging with others.
  • Created and shared the collaboration attributes of one recent project, represented as an image of a collaborative dining table.
  • Thoughtfully expressed why it would be important to nurture my PLN and identified specific activities I could engage in to cultivate and expand my PLN.
  • Mapped my PLN as a diagram.
  • Reflected on the module experience.

Experimenter Module Outcomes

ExperimenterRecipients of the Experimenter badge have completed a series of challenges inviting them to experiment. They have been curious and creative as they explored and reflected on new approaches to designing learning experiences and have extended their skills related to online and technology-enabled   learning.

Criteria Required for Badge Assessment – I have:

  • Completed three experimenter activities, with at least one of the activities done using a tablet or smartphone.
  • Summarized my experimenter activities in a detailed reflection.
  • Reflected on the module experience.

Scholar Module Outcomes

ScholarRecipients of the Scholar badge have examined how they can use their classroom and courses as a research lab to explore how they might improve their teaching practice and positively affect student outcomes and their satisfaction with the overall learning experience in their course. They have considered research about teaching and learning within their discipline and reflected on a process to implement a research plan.

Criteria Required for Badge Assessment – I have:

  • Identified three key characteristics of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) that resonate with my professional experience and practice.
  • Selected a few statements that would motivate me to become more engaged in SoTL activities.
  • Further refined my SoTL plan.
  • Designed a SoTL plan for one of my courses.
  • Updated my SoTL research plan document with a dissemination strategy for making public the key findings of my research study.
  • Shared my SoTL research plan.
  • Reflected on the module experience.

How do I get my badges?

Step by Step instructions here

Complete All Activities:
  1. Make sure you’ve completed all required activities in the module.
  2. Make sure that all the documents you share are accessible to anyone who has the right to access them.
  3. Check the Module Checklist at the end of each online module.

Apply for Your Badge:

  1. Select the “Get your badge” unit in Brightspace ______;
  2. Check the module checklist to make sure you have completed all modules;
  3. Select the “Get your ________ badge now” link at the bottom of the module checklist page;
  4. You will be returned to the eCampusOntario CanCred Factory page displaying the badge and its description.
  5. Fill in the form with the necessary information and evidence(hyperlink to answers).

Review and Award:

  1. Your badge application will be reviewed by the Empowered Educator program team. This review process could take up to 10 buisness days.
  2. If everything is in order, you’ll receive an email from noreply@factory.cancred.ca awarding you the badge. Be sure to check your junk/spam folders.

Claim Your Badge:

  1. Select “Get Your Badge” in the email, which will take you to the eCampusOntario Open Badge Passport.
  2. If it’s your first time, create an account. Then log in and accept your badge.

Use Your Badge:

  1. You can store it in the eCampusOntario Open Badge Passport, share it on social media, display it on your blog, online portfolio, resume, or other applications.

    Watch these short and helpful tutorials to learn more about retrieving and displaying your badges:

    eCampusOntario Passport – Accept your first badge from CanCred Info on Vimeo. eCampusOntario Passport – Share badges on LinkedIn from CanCred Info on Vimeo.
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