Learner Voice Digital Badge
Next Start Date: 28 September 2026
Delivery Mode: Self-directed with structured peer learning
Overview
How do you turn your commitment to Learner Voice into meaningful, everyday practice?
Learner Voice supports participatory and democratic learning environments, where power is shared, diverse perspectives are valued, and decision-making becomes more transparent and inclusive. In this way, it contributes not only to improved educational experiences but also to wider social change, helping to create more equitable, just, and democratic societies.
The Learner Voice Digital Badge is an 8-week programme designed for Further Education and Training (FET) staff, and adult and community education practitioners, who want to embed meaningful learner participation in their practice. Through peer collaboration, expert input, and tailored content, participants gain the skills to normalise Learner Voice processes that lead to real and sustained change.
On successful completion of the course, participants earn a Digital Badge issued through Open Badge, a verifiable and shareable digital credential that clearly demonstrates achievement and provides evidence of the skills developed throughout the programme.
Who is this Digital Badge for?
This course is designed for staff who:
- Work with learners
- Have responsibility for Learner Voice within their organisation
- Support learner development (e.g. Learner Support, Inclusion, Progression)
- Work in Quality Assurance roles
- Collaborate with AONTAS, including through the National FET Learner Forum
What will I learn?
- The foundations of Learner Voice and its role in FET
- How to embed Learner Voice as a structured, sustainable process
- Practical approaches for capturing learners’ experiences and using them to inform change
- How to establish and support structures such as Learner Councils
- Strategies for initiating and sustaining Learner Voice initiatives
What’s Involved?
- An 8-week programme (approximately 1.5 hours per week)
- 7 self-directed online modules
- 5 online peer (triad) meetings
- 1 live webinar
- A design activity, submitted for review to achieve the Digital Badge
Learning Approach
- Weekly self-directed learning across the programme
- Structured peer learning through triad meetings
- A live webinar to support shared learning and reflection
Note: Participants should ensure they are available to attend triad meetings.
About Open Courses
This open course has been developed by AONTAS, the National Adult Learning Organisation of Ireland.
About Open Courses
Open Courses have been designed by teams of colleagues across the higher education sector in collaboration with the Higher Education Authority and its National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. Open Courses are flexible opportunities for those who teach in further and higher education in Ireland, interested in progressing their professional development.
Open Badges
Digital badges are visual indicators of skills and achievements. Open Badges is the world’s leading format for digital badges, and is the platform used by the National Forum’s Open Courses. Open Badges is not a specific product or platform, but a type of digital badge. Open Badges are verifiable and shareable, and they contain detailed information about the achievement and what the recipient did to earn the badge.
For more information, contact Ruby Cooney at rcooney@aontas.com.
This project is funded through the New European Agenda for Adult Learning (NEAAL)
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.
