From:                                                      Kelvin Sung

Sent:                                                        Friday, September 28, 2007 6:22 PM

To:                                                            Kelvin Sung; 'John Nordlinger'

Cc:                                                            'Ivan Lumala'

Subject:                                                  Award Number: 15871  - July-Sep 2007 Progress Report (XNA Based Games-Themed Programming Assignments)

 

Re:       Award Number: 15871: July-Sep 2007 Progress Report

(XNA Based Games-Themed Programming Assignments)

 

This report covers our activities from July to Sep 2007. All members of the project went on vacation during late July/early August. We were busy with SIGCSE in early September. Since June, the following are three more publications we have submitted:

 

  1. K. Sung, M. Panitz, S. Wallace, R. Anderson, J. Nordlinger, "Game-Themed Programming Assignments: The Faculty Perspective," submitted to SIGCSE 2008, Sep 2007.
  2. P. Shirley, K. Sung, E. Brunvand, A. Davis, S. Parker, S. Boulos, "Fast Ray Tracing and The Potential Effects on Graphics and Gaming Courses," submitted to Computer & Graphics, Sep 2007 (full-length paper based on ACM SIGGRAPH 2007 Educator’s Program Conference Paper).
  3. M. Lewis, S. Leutenegger, M. Panitz, K. Sung (Organizer/Moderator), and S. Wallace, "Introductory Programming Courses and Computer Games," Panel proposal submitted to SIGCSE 2008, Sep 2007.

 

Project Progress:

We are entering the second phase of our project where we are going to use the assignments in class and assess student learning:

 

  1. Assessment forms/procedure: Becky Reed-Rosenberg, from UWB Teaching and Learning Center, has worked with Mike Panitz and Kelvin in designing the assessment forms and will be responsible for administering the following assessments:
    1. Student Learning:

                                               i.     Pre test: will be assigned as part of the programming assignments. Students will be advice that they are supposed to _not_ know everything. Students will be graded on effort rather than correctness (credit/no-credit).

                                              ii.     Post test: will be assigned as assignment after the programs are turned in. Students will be graded according to correctness. They should treat this as a regular homework assignment.

                                             iii.     Polling: Becky and Kelvin will stop by the classroom during the last 10 minutes on the days the assignments are due.

1.     For 142: Oct 15, Oct 22, Nov 5, Nov 19

2.     For 143: dates TBD

                                             iv.     Pre-class assessment on students’ general feeling:

1.     For 142: Oct 1st at 7:35pm

2.     For 143: Oct 1st at 8:00pm

                                              v.     Post-class assessment on students’ general feeling:

1.     For 142: Nov 26th at 7:35pm

2.     For 142: Nov 26th at 8:00pm

    1. Faculty:

                                               i.     Mike: will fill out the form for each of the 142/143 assignments.

  1. XNA Assignments: we have completed 5 sets of assignments with the 6th being 80% done. We will work on at least one more assignment set.
  2. Gaming class: we will teach a new games-programming class in Spring 2008 for non-technical students.
    1. We will approach this class with: teaching programming construct based on practical problem solving and using games to practice the programming constructs.
    2. We will start with building a simple game with a tool (e.g., game maker), students can play with their games, and then, the class will teach about programming constructs that relate to students’ games.
    3. Mike will design a sample schedule.
    4. Kelvin will complete the new course proposal form and seek approval from CSS curriculum committee and faculty.