As I’ve been looking back over the different approaches to organizing content and helping people learn it over more than a decade I have come to realize another reason that the Scouting Merit Badge approach seems to work so well.
Earning a single merit badge is a consumable amount of learning with a specific end date. Each covers the essentials of a topic and the skills involved and that is all. Reading through the requirements a person learning knows exactly what they are getting into, and whether they want to invest that time up front.
A similar thing happens when a person reads through the syllabus outline of a course in school, but to a less-accurate extent.
A person learning with a merit badge also always knows exactly where they are. They can come back and get any of the requirements far after the fact without fear of losing their progress they already had. This frees them to pursue other interests and badges. Eventually, they might decide not to finish the other one at all (since it isn’t required). Knowing they can always come back practically eliminates the sunk-cost fallacy that affects other approaches.
The Scouting rank that is associated with earning several merit badges includes a “board of review” where the board can ask anything about any merit badge required for that rank, including asking for demonstrations. This reinforces the need for a Scout to go back and review everything they learned up to that milestone point.
The presentation of the merit badges is inviting, not intimidating. Seeing all those colorful circles either on a grid or being worn by a scout fosters curiosity and motivation to learn more about them. When compared to a massive flow-chart or outline or syllabus it’s no wonder this first “gamification” of learning has been so effective since 1910. Others want to learn to get the badge.
#pedagogy #learning #scouting #gamified