About Badges
Unitec Tertiary Teaching Badges
Unitec has identified eight core teaching competencies that form the basis for professional development. The PD offered is aligned to support development of the competencies. More information is also available on the nest (Click here...)
A change in the current approach is a shift in focus from participation to practice. Instead of focusing on attendance at professional development workshops or events, the focus is now on teachers providing evidence of competency from their practice. Digital credentials are being used to recognise achievement, and support the collation and sharing of evidence.
What is a digital credential?
Digital credentials or ‘badges’ are an alternative to traditional certificates as a way of providing recognition for achievements or competencies. They hold data including the criteria that was expected and evidence that the earner met that criteria. They are very easy to share via social media, email, download or you can even print them out as a certificate if you want a physical copy. Digital-credentials are also very secure as they are based on blockchain technology, meaning you can be very confident about who issued and who earned a digital-credential when you look at one.
Why are we introducing digital-credentials?
We are introducing digital-credentials as a way of recognising elements of the teaching competencies for a number of reasons. Digital-credentials have been around for many years now and we have looked at examples from a number of other organisations that have successfully used them to recognise the professional development of their staff. The digital-credentials that you earn will be extremely portable. You can share them within and beyond Unitec and they will have meaning on their own, or they can be used as the first steps towards the APL process for a more formal qualification. They also make it easy for the credential issuers and earners to keep track of the competencies that have been evidenced.
Will these digital-credentials mean anything outside of Unitec?
Digital-credentials sit outside the NZQA system, and are evidence of a competency based on a robust, internal Unitec system. The recognition level would be similar to that of completing a Unitec short course that is not on the NZQA framework.Below is an example of a digital credential. You can see it includes a description of what the badge is for, the criteria for awarding the badge, and a link to the evidence that was submitted (red circle) to get the badge.
