Published on 11.09.2024 under General, Education, matrix gGmbH, STEM education, about matrix
Real-world laboratories as the key to the further development and acceptance of Open Educational Badges
Learning takes place everywhere - in formal school environments as well as in non-formal and informal contexts. With Open Educational Badges (OEB), we are developing a tool that makes learning experiences and skills acquisition visible in a standardized way - regardless of where the learning takes place. The technical and content standardization of the OEB makes them compatible and comparable, promotes cross-institutional learning and builds bridges between formal and non-formal educational offerings.
So much for the theory. But how do we ensure that badges work in practice?
To get answers to this question, we have decided on an innovative approach in modern research and development work: real laboratories.
This participatory approach, also known as Citizen Development ensures that OEB reflects the real needs and challenges of practice.
OEB Real Laboratories – Why?
...because we want to find out how we can establish OEB sustainably and in the long term and gain recognition and acceptance as a valuable certification. To do this, we need data from practice. From actors along the entire education chain who use OEB. Because we are not only developing OEB for the educational landscape, but with Exp.
The findings from our real-world laboratories help to iteratively develop OEB. They provide direct feedback on the current development status of the OEB. They also show relevant factors for scaling.
OEB Real Laboratories – How?
…community-driven and co-creative – just like Matrix.
Our real-world laboratories are test rooms that are limited in time, space and content and in which we test and develop OEB under practical conditions. The focus of our real-world laboratories is on extracurricular STEM education and actors who recognize and accept badges - including parents, teachers and companies.
We build two types of real-world laboratories and activate corresponding communities:
Our analogue or regional real-world laboratories We focus on integrating OEB into the entire regional education and career guidance ecosystem and are in contact with parents, teachers and companies, for example. We involve these actors in the development of OEB as early as possible in order to identify factors for success and failure. Another key component is the development of materials that enable a successful and low-threshold transfer of OEB to the entire STEM education landscape.
Our digital real-world laboratories we are testing OEB and its scaling in digital learning ecosystems.
We focus on OpenResearch and make our approach and the findings from our real-world laboratories transparent and accessible. By disclosing this, we promote knowledge transfer and enable others to benefit from our experiences and contribute to the further development of OEB.
At the same time, we promote Open Innovation the exchange and cooperation of key players to develop creative, practical solutions that will gain lasting recognition and acceptance in education.
OEB Reallabore – What?
Our real-world laboratories are three extracurricular learning locations for STEM education: The Infosphere (Student computer science laboratory of the RWTH Aachen University) in Aachen, the experimenta – The Science Center in Heilbronn and the coolMINT (Student laboratory of the University of Paderborn) in Paderborn.
As part of the real-world laboratories, we support the extracurricular learning locations in the integration of OEB. This includes registration as well as the creation and awarding of badges via the OEB platform, which we use as Open Source Provide a solution. In selected courses, the learning locations award OEBs and thus demonstrate to their learners the skills they have strengthened or newly acquired during the course. Once the badges have been awarded, an exchange with the regional education and career guidance ecosystem around the extracurricular learning locations follows.
In workshops or other formats, we come into contact with key players such as parents, teachers and companies and talk to them about OEB. Through observations, group discussions and qualitative interviews, we collect valuable insights for the iterative development of OEB.
OEB Real Laboratories – Now!
In August, the starting signal was given for our first real-world laboratory: Infosphere Aachen awarded badges to all participants as part of its student university for computer science.
In addition to the perspective of those who recognize and accept, the perspective of the students and the awarding (educational) institutions is also interesting. Our partner mycelia gGmbH focuses on these target groups as part of its accompanying scientific research. They were with us in the Aachen real laboratory and interviewed the participants of the student university for computer science:
The other real-world laboratories in Heilbronn and Paderborn will follow. We look forward to the valuable findings!
Open Educational Badges is a joint project of matrix group, mycelia gGmbH and openSenseLab gGmbHIt takes place in cooperation with Deutsche Telekom Foundation is sponsored by Federal Ministry of Education and Researchg and financed by the European Union – NextGenerationEU.
