Video Game Design/Developers

Are any of your classes articulated to a college class?

How did that process work for you?

has it worked out for you?

It is definitely a focus area in our district. Some departments are going the Dual enrollment route, I have considered both, but my issue is finding a college around me that does it and is willing to articulate.

Our courses in our District are articulated with our Local Community College (Norco Community College).  It has a Game Design Pathway there as well.  We developed the courses using their syllabi as a framework.  This helped smooth the articulation process.  We update and adjust our material based upon their adjustments as well.  The credit works for the full year for us as a Semester of credit with the Community College.

Reach out to a Department Chair to start the process for sure to get as much information as you can and share your course outlines with them in order to best determine whether it would be a good fit for articulation.

I have the hardest time getting my local college to even respond to emails. My interest/priority is definitely not the same as theirs. 

It really is a "your mileage may vary" situation with how your JC is. We are having a rough time with a lot of our classes at my current school. Previous school had a JC that would sign off on basically anything. Hard part for me is my JCs don't really have mature programs, if they have one at all.

This is way too common across the western states, from what I am reading. Likewise, our local JC has been extremely difficult to try to communicate with regarding CE credits for computer science, web development, cybersecurity, or IT systems (CSIT pathways) courses.

We have had one course but that has really dwindled even though our CSIT program is growing, but honestly, I don't think that is still being offered because of the lack of communication from the JC.

i have tried to create articulation agreements with other institutions, but as stated, it must go through the proper process before we can partner with another institution which our leadership hasn't wanted to do.

Our CSIT program is on an island when it comes to CS with our local JC.

My district people have always had an easier time than I ever have.

Yeah, my CTE department would LOVE to get something going, my own school is about 10 blocks from our CC, City College of SF, but we have none. Our site based Pathway Coordinator tries every year to have CIty College offer a class or two on our campus, for our students, and City College makes it as hard as possible. Coordinator says don't even bother with Dual Enrollment because they won't follow through.

I actually think Dual Enrollment makes more sense than AP. My school serves mostly working class immigrants of color. While we have plenty who take AP courses, not many of them score high enough on the exam at the end to get COLLEGE credit. Dual enrollment could help.

I also get a fair number of follow up emails from students who graduated who complain that our school didn't really prepare them well for college level work. Even those who went only to a CC say English 1 is so hard because their English classes in HS are so easy. They always say they took as many AP classes as possible just to be in classes with other students who WANT to be there and learn, but their non AP classes are wastes of time. As I said in a different thread, because my school refuses to move students from a Pathway, and make ALL students in junior year join a Pathway, academically oriented students get stuck in classes with kids who aren't engaged, so the pace is really slow for them. I think Dual Enrollment could be a good solution, but those who work with CIty College says it's brutal to coordinate with them.

Some of my former students' worst criticisms are for the English teachers at the school who basically don't teach novels or even read books together. Too many check ins, too many fluff assignments, not much that aligns with what will be expected of them in college English classes. Some also admit, they didn't take AP English classes because they reserved AP for more science and math oriented things and were fine if their English class was super easy and didn't challenge them, so they could focus on AP Stats or AP Calc

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Owen Peery k12teacher
SAN FRANCISCO CA
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My Game Design and Game Development courses only exist because my predecessor partnered with the local community college to offer them as dual credit. I didn't have a masters when I started at my current position so they became general classes.

When I got my masters two years ago, my district happened to be pushing dual enrollment classes so I randomly got printouts of course descriptions for colleges offering it. While I may reinstate the game related classes as dual enrollment, I wasn't fond of the curriculm I was left and have completely changed it. I searched for colleges offering dual enrollment in my state and ended up finding a school across the state with CS classes and a CS / Statistics crossover class I liked so I'll describe what I went through with that. I had to apply with a resume, college transcripts and descriptions of my experience. Since most of my experience is with CS (both degrees are in it and 17 years teaching it), they followed up asking about my familarity with Statistics to confirm I knew enough despite not taking a Statistics course.

That is interesting, do you know if there were state standards in PA when the courses were set up? Or was it strictly a college articulation thing back then?

It was strictly a college articulation thing. The teacher before me was looking at broadening CS options that she thought students would be interested in. PA did not have state standards until 2018 which was the year I started at my current school.

I recommend articulation agreements over dual-enrollment because it does not require us to be an employee of the JC, and it allows us to continue to teach our courses during the normal bell schedule versus dual enrollment in the afternoons/evenings.

I found that getting in front of the respective department chair at the JC was the hardest part. I emailed a few times, then called, and in some instances just showed up on campus to a class they were teaching to get face time. Start with your local JC and find intro classes that already align with what you are doing. If they give you the cold shoulder, move your radius outward to the next closest JC and establish a relationship with them, but send the first JC an email saying "we are still open to working together but have moved on to such and such school..." to see if you can convince them to see the light and actually respond to inquiries.

You may have to have agreements with different JCs depending on your/their course descriptions; I believe two pathways on my campus have agreements with different JCs for different courses because that is what aligned best.

Again, physically go to the school with your course outline and final project samples to handoff to the necessary people if they don't respond to calls or email.

I went to the AME Conference in Burbank a couple of years ago and there was a session dedicated to just that. Some agreed with you because it was easier to start. Other folks said they got around that by something like they teach the class like normal for dual enrollment, but the projects and assessments were created in consultation with JC teachers and maybe once or twice a class, the professor came to the school to teach a lesson. 

From what I understand, many students in my school are searching for ways to enter college as a freshman already with some college credits. Do articulation agreements do that? I know dual enrollment does. I know some dual enrollment teachers prefer it though because they can have the standards and expectations of a community college rather than ones of their principal, which they might not find rigorous enough, also grading for the same reason.

In any case, it's a heavy lift whichever path you take.

Yes, articulation earns college credits through CATEMA (Career and Technology Education Management Application)  in California.  I think it may have some partner Community Colleges elsewhere.