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Evidence highlights that impact depends on program quality and stakeholder negotiation, translation, and endorsement across informal, formal, and higher education.",{"@graph":14,"@context":72},[15,34,55],{"@type":16,"itemListElement":17},"BreadcrumbList",[18,23,27,31],{"item":19,"name":20,"@type":21,"position":22},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",1,{"item":24,"name":25,"@type":21,"position":26},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":28,"name":29,"@type":21,"position":30},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/","Research & 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Gutierrez, and Maggie Muldoon  \nMany high-quality out-of-school-time (OST) programs enable youth from economically disadvantaged backgrounds to gain skills and knowledge in science, technology, engineering, art, and math (STEAM, Afterschool Alliance, 2015; National Research Council, 2011); engage in authentic practices that relate to their own interests; and connect with their peers and their own cultures (Bell et al., 2009; Ito et al., 2013) .  \nHowever, too often structural inequalities in the resources available to low-income youth, such as a lack of guidance counselors who can help them develop college portfolios, mean that the talents they develop in OST programs may not be communicated to admissions officers when they apply to college (Archer et al. , 2012, Calahan et al. , 2019; Riegle-  \nCrumb et al., 2011). Since Black and Latinx youth are twice as likely to attend afterschool programming as their White counterparts (Afterschool Alliance, 2015), OST programs can address inequality of opportunities to some extent. However, to fully realize their potential to broaden STEAM participation in higher education and the workforce, OST STEAM programs need not only to help participants gain knowledge and skills, but also to give them tools for communicating their  \nWENDY MARTIN, PhD, is a senior research scientist at Education Development Center. She has been principal investigator on a number of projects funded by the National Science Foundation to broaden participation in the STEAM workforce.  \nJAIME GUTIERREZ is a research associate at Education Development Center. He has worked on projects funded by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Education researching how technology can be used to improve outcomes for students. MAGGIE MULDOON is senior manager of Design League at Mouse, a nonprofit that provides creative technology programs for formal and informal learning environments. She works with students to conceive of, design, and build creative technical solutions to real-world problems.  \naccomplishments to college and career gatekeepers (Fishman et al. , 2018) .  \nThe past five toten years have seen several initiatives that use digital badges as tangible representations of OST learning (Davis & Singh, 2015) . These efforts have had a mixed track record; their impact is related to the quality of the program design as much as to the badges themselves (Abramovich et al. , 2013; Hickey & Shenke, 2019) . Research demonstrates that digital badges can be effective in documenting the skills and accomplishments of low-income youth when OST programs partner with the education system to ensure that the badges are given real value, such as providing course credits toward graduation and connecting OST inititatives with broadly recognized school programs (Rennie Center for Education Research & Policy, 2018) . Digital badges can serve as alternative credentials for college applications only if those who evaluate the applications recognize the badging system (Fishmanet al. , 2018) . This recognition requires negotiation, translation, and partnership among stakeholders in informal, formal, and higher education (Itow & Hickey, 2016) .  \nMouse, a national nonprofit that provides formal and informal creative technology programs, and Parsons School of Design in New York City established a badge endorsement partnership in a program called Investigating Digital Badges as Alternative Credentials to Broaden STEM Participation Among Underrepresented Youth. This digital badge system was designed to give young people language and evidence to demonstrate to higher education gatekeepers the value of what they learned in Mouse’s Design League program. The project formalized procedures through which Parsons faculty co-created the badges and Parsons administrators endorsed them. This endorsement signals to other colleges that Design League me","cbCaii7Q1MybOeN4","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaii7Q1MybOeN4","pdf",165360,"English","# Digital badges as evidence for OST learning\n## Addressing opportunity gaps in STEAM participation\n## Conditions for recognition as alternative credentials\n# The endorsement partnership for broader STEM access\n## Program context and goals\n# Design League program structure\n## Phase 1: Design Skills Foundations\n## Phase 2: Product Design","[{\"question\":\"Why do digital badges matter for out-of-school-time STEAM programs?\",\"answer\":\"They act as tangible representations of learning, allowing participants to document skills and accomplishments tied to STEAM experiences.\"},{\"question\":\"What limits the ability of low-income youth to communicate OST gains to colleges?\",\"answer\":\"Structural inequalities, such as limited guidance support for building college portfolios, can prevent talents developed in OST programs from being recognized by admissions officers.\"},{\"question\":\"When do digital badges function as alternative credentials for college applications?\",\"answer\":\"They work only when application evaluators recognize the badge system, which requires negotiation and endorsement among stakeholders across informal, formal, and higher education.\"}]","Digital Badges Forging Connections Between Informal and Higher Education | PDF",23]