As I write about the new Boost Badges I’m forced to face the fact that there are several previous directions for how to organize Boosts over the years and I struggle to reconcile them all. The idea of the Boost Badges seems to be the best, to date, and is established on the solid work of the Scouting program, which has worked since 1910.
Here are the different approaches summarized so far (and strewn about in my zettelkasten notes:
Boost Badges. Based almost directly on the Boy Scouts of America Merit Badge system, but with depth levels added. This approach isolates the content into a solid list of measurable, well-organized requirements. This approach is easy to follow and navigate but it is the least flexible. Rather than allow the person learning to make their own choices for many things, they are given a list of limited options. This might make most feel more comfortable, but does less to inspire autodidactic habits (even though still way better than traditional school approaches).
MUDL CYOA. The choose-your-own-learning-adventure approach sounds appealing when reading about it, but has proven to be far too difficult to follow without a significant amount of work to generate a map for the person learning to see so they know where they are. Without the map this method might be fun, but is almost impossible to navigate and measure progress. Since the point is flexibility generating such a map is a huge task for any single person since everyone is so unique.
Days. The chronological, linear method of covering something on a given day that builds on the last and up to the next provides the person learning initially with a degree of motivation, but has proven to eventually fail, usually after more than 40 days. People give up when they realize this isn’t going to be over for a long time. Even though there are projects along the way, the feeling of accomplishment is diminished because a given skill or topic is diluted across several days. The idea of a “day” is really a lie. Nothing takes a single day and people have different rates of learning and available time.
Flow Chart. A flow chart seems easy enough to follow, until you add in the volume of content, then it gets unwieldy really fast. For something as broad as a good technical foundation that applies to all technical careers the selections that must be made up front are daunting for the content creator and the learner. A simple question, “Do you want to do Python or Web?” becomes debilitating to answer. This feeling of being forced to make a decision has always hindered this method from being a motivational tool. For some reason, the person learning feels forced to stick with their decision to take one path or another and less free to change it at any time, probably because of sunk cost fallacy.