Managing the Art Room: How Badges Inspire Student Choice

After two years of teaching in a choice-based art room, I had structured my lessons, materials, and classroom environment to support student agency, discovery, and decision-making. However, my assessments failed to reflect the same commitment to these principles. Inspired by Brad Flickinger’s Reward Learning with Badges (International Society for Technology in Education, 2016), I began an eight-year journey to develop a successful badging system that empowers students to track their progress, reflect on their learning, and set personal goals in a choice-based curriculum.

What Are Badges?
In my art room, a badge is a one-inch square of paper that has a picture and a label that represents a material, concept, or skill a student has demonstrated in a completed project. To date, I have created over 230 badges across the following studios: Drawing, Painting, Clay, Fiber Arts/Sewing, Sculpture, Collage, and Digital Art. The collection continues to grow with student input.

How the System Works
Students earn specific badges by demonstrating proficiency in the following areas in a finished project:

Materials—e.g., tempera paint, cardboard, oil pastels.
Techniques—e.g., shading, stippling, blending, sgraffito, glazing.
Content—e.g., themes, subject matter, ideas portrayed in their work.
Elements of Art and Principles of Design—e.g., emphasis on line, texture, pattern, contrast.
Artist Behaviors—e.g., peer teaching, artist statements, perseverance, artistry.

I design the badges in Canva, print them in sheets of thirty-five, cut them out, and sort them into pockets on hanging jewelry organizers for easy access. Students earn badges during a student-teacher post-conference, in which they explain their artistic process using art vocabulary. They use packing tape to attach their badges to an organizer stapled on the back of their portfolio.

Each badge can only be earned once, encouraging students to reflect on their individual learning and set goals to expand their skills and explore new content in their future work.

A Tool for Assessment
While badges give students agency and autonomy, they also provide ongoing individualized data for teachers to refer to when conferring with students about their work. I regularly review students’ badges when they say they feel stuck or finished with an artwork. By seeing which skills they have already demonstrated, I can offer immediate constructive feedback that challenges and extends their abilities in ways that are relevant to their specific needs and current work.

For example, if a student is unsure how to fill the negative space around a flower shaded with colored pencil, I assess the badges the student has earned and notice a proficiency and interest in painting techniques, but not experience so far with bleeding tissue paper, salt and watercolor, or oil pastel and watercolor resist. I can suggest these options, explain their visual effects, provide quick demonstrations, and support the student as needed. Rather than defaulting to familiar methods, the badges motivate and encourage students to explore a range of materials and techniques—an essential goal of elementary art education.

Celebrating Growth Along the Way
As I developed the badging system, I found that celebrating incremental growth was key to its success. Elementary students thrive from positive feedback and peer recognition. For every five badges earned, students choose a fun sticker. When students fill the back of their folders, earning thirty badges, I dramatically announce their accomplishment, and their classmates cheer as they sign the “30 Badge Club” poster and receive an Extra Art Time Coupon, allowing them to work independently in the art room for twenty minutes outside of class. Students track their badges throughout the year, with most earning forty to fifty badges, and some earning close to ninety.

How Badges Empower Student Choice