Abstract
Game developers are beginning to understand it is important to approach computer game design like how all software engineers approach projects involving large numbers of people and significant investment of time. Engineering instructors often rely on the traditional lecture model when they teach topics to a classroom of students. Students often fail to engage with the material presented bylecturers. Many engineering educators regard experiential learning as an effective way to train future generations of engineers and game developers. The authors have created two courses that focus on software engineering and game development. These courses were initially offered as traditional lecture classes to both in-person and online groups of students. This chapter describes the authors’ approaches to revising these game design classes to make use of flipped classroom models that rely on active learning, role-play, and gamification to cover software engineering topics in these courses. Students learn to use Agile software engineering practices to design, implement, and test game prototypes. In-person students were surveyed to measure their perceived levels of engagement with course activities. Our assessment data suggests that students attending flipped class meetings were slightly more engaged with the course materials than those taking the class offered using lectures only. Students interacting with the active learning course materials felt better able to apply their knowledge than students in a traditional lecture course.
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This project was partially supported by a grant from the University of Michigan-Dearborn Advancement of Teaching and Learning HUB Creative Teaching Fund.
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Maxim, B.R., Yackley, J.J. (2023). Using Active Learning to Teach Software Engineering in Game Design Courses. In: Cooper, K.M.L., Bucchiarone, A. (eds) Software Engineering for Games in Serious Contexts. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-33338-5_9
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