1. A Hybrid Approach to Projects in Gaming Courses
Amber Settle
DePaul University
joint work with Joe Linhoff and André Berthiaume
GDCSE
March 2, 2008

2. Necessity of group projects
Group projects are ubiquitous in computer science education, and computer game development in particular:
Game development is a team effort
Students must be able to develop games of a large size and complexity
Students need quality demos to showcase their abilities to employers
Achieving these goals without the use of group projects is difficult

3. An impossible balance? Instructors have many goals in the classroom:
Conveying technically-challenging material
Providing experience with structured programming processes
Encouraging student creativity
Maintaining student morale
Good use of group projects requires:
Instruction about interpersonal skills
Encouragement of positive interdependence
Reflection on the group process
There is only so much time in the semester/quarter!

4. A hybrid approach Individual projects early in quarter
Cumulative or independent projects
Build individual competency with an emphasis on preparing for group work
Comprehensive final project
Required or optional team work
Produce a large, fully-functional product with the tools used throughout the quarter

5. DePaul CTI
School of Computer Science, Telecommunications, and Information Systems (CTI)
1000 undergraduates/2000 graduate students
14 Bachelors degrees/15 Masters degrees
Quarter system: 10 weeks plus 1 week for final exams
Particularly relevant programs:
Computer Games Development
In existence since
Computer Science
Downward trend stabilizing
(Tied for) 2nd largest program(s) with 150 majors (each)

6. Courses GAM 244: Game Development I GAM 374: Action Games Programming
2D Game design and development
Tool: Game Maker
GAM 374: Action Games Programming
Prerequisite: Two quarters of C++
Tools: C++ and OpenGL
Both count as major requirements in Computer Science and Computer Games Development
Approach to projects differs in each course

7. GAM 244: Game Development I
Freshman-level course
Exposure to entire game development cycle (idea  specification  implementation)
Taken by many CTI majors, including
Digital Cinema
Interactive Media
Information Technology
2D games using Game Maker

8. GAM 244: Course structure
Four projects that are fully-functional, individually created games
Single-level game
Multi-level game
Functional prototype
Complete design document and implementation
Final project completed by a team

9. GAM 244: Final project
One quarter of the final individual projects are chosen as final projects by instructor
How well is game presented in design document?
How much can the game be expanded?
How well did the implementation represent the design document?
Project teams are formed
(Mostly) self-selected with a maximum of 4 people
Led by the person who created the game

10. GAM 374: Action Games Programming
Junior/senior level course
Computer Science
Computer Games Development
3D games using C++ and OpenGL
Other course tools
Source control
Educational game engine (instructor-created)
A wiki

11. GAM 374: Course structure Fall 2006 Fall 2007
Seven individual, independent projects
Final project with optional team formation
Fall 2007
Three mini-games interspersed between projects
Pull the independent skills together in one deliverable

12. Benefits
Provides detailed knowledge about students’ strengths and weaknesses early in quarter
Reward for strong students to have game chosen for final project
Recognition by the instructor/fellow students
Chance to lead a team
Can be a punishment …
Identified team leader provides structure

13. Drawbacks Less time spent working as a team
Efficiency
Team dynamics
Data only weakly supports anecdotal benefits
GAM 244: 57% raised score on final; 43% lowered score
GAM 374:
47% joined a team; final project scores equal average of strongest student
53% worked alone; final project scores dropped from individual projects

14. Problems with the metric
Current metric: Individual grades versus team grades
No measurable data about individual student contribution to the group
No data about students’ backgrounds
Do the individual projects develop skills used in the group project? How much are students using pre-existing skills?
No data about students’ experience with and attitudes toward group projects
No measurement of (perceived) team efficiency

15. A promising change GAM 374: Action Games Programming Fall 2006
53% of students worked alone on final project
Lack of team efficiency on final project
Fall 2007 (Change: mini games added)
93% of students worked on teams for final project
Students were more efficient on final project
Mini games brought the ideas together

16. Future work Find a better metric Refine individual projects
Individual contribution to the project
Background
Attitudes toward group projects
Efficient application of skills
Refine individual projects
Integration of skills