Leveraging role play to explore software and game development process

Decker, Adrienne; Simkins, David

doi:10.1109/fie.2016.7757685

Cited by 12 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…There are a number of examples of courses that make use of project work to help students enhance their soft skills simultaneously with their software development skills 29 . Decker and Simkins 30 introduced the use of an extended role play approach in a game development processes class where the students were not assessed solely on the artifacts they produced, but rather the processes by which they created the artifacts. Their roleplay activities emphasize industry best practices for both technical and soft skills (project management, communication, marketing, and interdisciplinary design).…”

Section: Student Engagementmentioning

confidence: 99%

WIP: Teaching a Knowledge Engineering Course Using Active Learning, Gamification, and Scaffolding

Luera¹

2020

Preprint

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This paper describes the authors’ experiences introducing active learning opportunities in senior-level software analysis and design course. The team critically examined the existing artificial intelligence course offered at our institution and created new active learning style instructional materials for selected course topics. We devised delivery strategies that incorporated academic research findings and industry best practices. We focused on problem-based learning strategies for this course, supported by software tools. Based on our assessment data, we believe that students participating in the activities created for this course are better equipped with fundamental theoretical knowledge and valuable hands-on experiences that can measurably increase their ability to contribute to the software industry. Both face-to-face and online students preferred active learning content delivery to lecture only. Both groups of students felt more engaged with the course materials than they do in traditional lecture courses.

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Section: Student Engagementmentioning

confidence: 99%

WIP: Teaching a Knowledge Engineering Course Using Active Learning, Gamification, and Scaffolding

Luera¹

2020

Preprint

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“…This back story is used to provide a meaningful context for the term project activities. This backstory is discussed in greater detail in Decker and Simkins [16]. Decker and Simkins used this approach in a game development processes class where the outcomes for the students were not assessed based strictly on what they produced but rather the processes by which they created those artifacts.…”

Section: B Role-playmentioning

confidence: 99%

Use of role-play and gamification in a software project course

Maxim

Brunvand

Decker

2017

2017 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)

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Soft skills are increasingly important to the engineering profession and course modifications are often needed to ensure students have opportunities to practice them prior to graduation. This suggests that engineering programs need to go beyond simply offering industry-based capstone courses and internships. Role-play has a long history as a tool for learning. It can be used to simulate real world practices in environments where consequences can be mitigated safely. In this paper, we discuss the use of team role-play activities to simulate the experience of working in a professional, game development studio as a means of enhancing an advanced undergraduate game design course. In conjunction with the role-play, a gamification framework was used within the course to allow students to customize their course participation. Gamification was used to reward students for compliance with software process steps and for taking the initiative to improve their "soft skills". In this project, allowing students to negotiate the nature of their activities and rewards helped them develop those skills. We are using student feedback and our own lessons learned to plan the next iteration of this course.

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“…There are several examples of courses that make use of project work to help students enhance their soft skills simultaneously with their software development skills [41]. Decker and Simkins [42] introduced the use of an extended role play approach in a game development process class where the students were not assessed solely on the artifacts they produced, but the processes by which they created their artifacts. Their roleplay activities emphasize industry best practices for both technical and soft skills (project management, communication, marketing, and interdisciplinary design).…”

Section: Student Engagementmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This course beginning in 2017 had the students role-play as developers of a failing game company with the goal of simulating concept to release creation of 3D computer games using Unreal Engine 4. The failing game company backstory used to motivate the role-play in our course is discussed further in Decker and Simkins [42]. Decker and Simkins provide the framework we used to build and adapt our role-play modules.…”

Section: Role-playmentioning

confidence: 99%