This is the time of year for that.
We are on semester blocks, so my capstone course is basically a tale of two quarters:
The first quarter is Create with Code, some other tutorials/small projects and creating a game design document for their final project.
The second quarter is them working on their culminating game.
I could definitely see the lack of dedication being a problem in your capstone with kids being forced to take it. Games aren't easy for the obsessed. It's probably a meat grinder for the rest.
Original Message:
Sent: 5/19/2023 9:04:00 PM
From: Owen Peery
Subject: RE: Entry Course Suggestions
Yeah I am thinking of more direct instruction for sure next year. I only have 2 courses, GD1 and GD2, and spring semester of GD2 is supposed to be reserved for the Capstone. I think my students can realistically work from Spring Break to the end of the year on a Capstone. They just aren't motivated and obsessed enough to make it a whole semester long project.
I spent most of today in my junior classes debugging colliders, OnTriggerEnter and OnCollisionEnter methods. I think the move to 2d for next year will make so much of that easier.
I added Github this year, but only a small number have been able to use it effectively. I'm on the fence about keeping it. I know if they study CS or Game Dev further or get a job in the industry, they'll use it, but it's a lot to wrap their heads around. Especially when they grew up with google docs, real time collaboration, and no real conflicts between versions. It takes so much to reteach new habits. I'd say about 30% of my groups right now have screwed up their repos so bad that it's hard to see the work they HAVE put in bc they just keep pushing and merging and not communicating.
Sorry, we're almost over for the year and I'm in my reflective mood, what isn't working, and what should I do instead.
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Owen Peery k12teacher
SAN FRANCISCO CA
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Original Message:
Sent: 05-19-2023 16:33
From: Brian Bautista
Subject: Entry Course Suggestions
That sounds real real tough.
The quiet part about my GD1 course is that it is in many ways a "filter". If you aren't "about this" you never really go past my GD1, because my GD2 is tough and it takes very self-motivated students to survive it, not necessarily "AP/Honors" types, but kids that can struggle at something and not go to cry in a corner. I often wonder if my GD1 trains students as much as it finds them, in this regard.
Without that filtering effect, I suspect my concentrator and capstone classes would be nowhere near as successful as they are.
My school is sort of on the opposite end of the spectrum, we have a few pathways (frankly we need more) and students are encouraged to check out a few of them. We are getting computer science up and running next year and there is an expectation that we are going to share a bunch of students as I already do with Graphic Design and Engineering.
I can see the thought process to pushing kids to continue down a pathway, but the potential negative effects sound pretty harsh at first thought. CTE is supposed to be a pull factor for students, that sounds like it could end up being a push factor for some kids.
If I were in this situation, I would be very scope aware in my first two classes especially. I would likely dial back a lot of what I was trying to get done. Do a lot more direct instruction, more demonstration time. Basically scaffold all of this way more than I would normally to make it easier for less motivated students to stay on the boat.
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Brian Bautista k12teacher
Citrus Heights CA
Original Message:
Sent: 05-18-2023 20:06
From: Owen Peery
Subject: Entry Course Suggestions
It's been interesting reading everyone's course sequences. Super helpful as I reflect on my year, and my 2nd year running this pathway.
At my school, all juniors and seniors MUST join a Pathway. There are no students not in pathways, they even assign students in the mod/severe programs to a pathway.
Once you are in a pathway, you must stay in it for 2 years. I get why we do that, but it does have unintended consequences. For example, my district also doesn't want any prerequisites for pathway courses. A student could fail my Game Design 1 and just not be into what we do, and they are forced to take Game Design 2. There is literally no place for them except in the Pathway. We don't allow pathway changes so students build some resilience and keep going even when the going gets tough. It doesn't work the way we envision it, but alas . . .
In my Pathway, in junior year, students take Game Design 1 with me, and they are all in the same English class and then in the same history class. The idea is that we are supposed to be doing integrated projects across the subjects, but that's not really happening. It could be really cool but we've had a lot of turnover and a bunch of brand new teachers who are just figuring out how to teach so that's been hard. Then in senior year they take Game Design 2 with me, and again they are all in the same senior English class, and they all are together for American Government and Economics. We do a little collaborating with this group, mostly around the Capstone projects, but it should be so much more expansive than it is.
The elective teachers before me have only lasted 2 years. Literally every 2 years the teacher changes. I have to admit, I was thinking of leaving this year too. There are no other elective courses in my Pathway, and we barely have electives anyway, so I have to do so much in my 2 course sequence. Then you throw in that we have NO CS CLASSES at all in the school anymore, and I have to hit programming hard or else they won't be able to make any games. There has been a lot of turnover and no real commitment to the pathway. I've had a few really great projects get done for Capstones this year, but most are MEH at best.
I'm trying to think long and hard about how to make this arrangement work. I think Game Design 1 will focus on programming and navigating around an engine, I'll use Godot next year. I will have mini units on making art assets for games and on sound effects and background music. I won't require they make a game at the end of year 1. I'll require that they spend s significant amount of time working on the thing they got passionate about. It might be a game in a team, but it might be pixel art, or sound effects. For Game Design 2, I want to focus on making more prototypes that simulate games, teaching more about PROCESS and how teams work together to put a whole game together, and then spend the last 3 months at least having teams work on a game and do all the steps in the process. Making sure each team has a legit art, sound and programming person on it, rather than a collection of friends who will make a mediocre game.
I tried making my juniors this year make a game on a team after we finished Create with Code, but it really turned out they barely understood what they were doing. They could follow the videos. They could build the prototypes, but making their own thing from scratch was too much for most of my juniors. I have 2 sections of juniors and 2 sections of seniors. I think maybe 8-10 juniors, 2 teams, made a solid game. The rest of the teams got lost in Github merge land, lost in Unity collider land, or just bit off way more than they could chew, and thing after thing failed. They feel defeated. I want to reserve the team project for the end of the program once they have a better idea of how it all works.
I'd like to do mini projects that are team oriented, but not have the blank slate project until it's their Capstone time.
Finding the right progression so more are successful has been a challenge for me.
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Owen Peery k12teacher
SAN FRANCISCO CA
Original Message:
Sent: 05-11-2023 10:36
From: Austin DeLoach
Subject: Entry Course Suggestions
Hey all! I'm heading up the game development pathway (3 course sequence) at a high school in Dallas. I'm the only one teaching levels 2 and 3, but there's another teacher who has a section of level 1.
Levels 2 and 3 are all Unity and C#, but the other teacher who has a section of Level 1 doesn't have any programming experience. I'm trying to figure out how to make that course helpful as a lead-in to the higher levels without making it programming heavy. At Level 1, most students also don't have exposure to programming unless they are also taking AP CSP with me at the same time.
The plan for Level 1 right now is to have a bunch of design ideas, pixel art and animation, and an intro to making low poly assets (either in Blender or Kenney's Asset Forge - undecided at the moment.) This year, their last project was to make a simple game in Microsoft's MakeCode Arcade and some are figuring it out, but the other teacher isn't able to provide much debugging help.
I'm debating on what would be the most valuable in that course as far as an entry game design class with low code requirements would go. Keep doing MakeCode (with block code)? Try a low/no code engine like GDevelop? Or just get them playing in the Unity editor, but not intro C# yet? I'd love it if they could make something to practice the design ideas without having coding be a wall that early in.
If anyone has feedback or experience with any of those ideas, I'd love to hear them! Thanks!
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Austin DeLoach
New Tech HS
Dallas, TX
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