A Recipe for Game Development Assignments in CS2

1
A Recipe for Game Development Assignments in CS2

• Jude Allred
• Advised by Professor Michael Main and Professor
  Clayton Lewis
• Department of Computer Science, University of
  Colorado, Boulder
• Jude.Allred_at_colorado.edu
• Jude.FogBugz.com

2
Spoiler

• I surveyed CS education research, and there are
  many promising frontiers.
• There are interested choices to make in designing
  a CS class.
• There is a strong case for using game development
  as the basis for assignments in CS2.

3
The Recipe
Incorporate these items into your CS2 Assignments
by using games
Doing so should provide increase student
comprehension of the course material, lowered
peer intimidation, performance improvements for
the low-end students, and increased comfort with
and enthusiasm for computer science.
4
Use Games
5
Familiarity
6
Embedded Learning
7
Fun
8
Assets
9
Deployability
10
Playable on Startup
11
Concretize Abstract Concepts
12
Extensibility
13
Mitigate Extraneous Code
14
These steps are simple

• And you can incorporate at least some of them
  into any assignment.
• And you probably already are.

15
Use The Recipe
Incorporate these items into your CS2 Assignments
by using games
Doing so should provide increase student
comprehension of the course material, lowered
peer intimidation, performance improvements for
the low-end students, and increased comfort with
and enthusiasm for computer science.
16
General Difficulties in CS

• Computer science education suffers from
• Dropping enrollment
• Poor gender diversity
• Inconsistencies in teaching methodologies

17
Background Topics

• CS1 CS2
• Language Choice
• Comfort, Intimidation, and Interest

18
CS1 CS2

• In particular
• CS1 and CS2 experience severe dropout rates
• Primary focus of CS education research
• Defined by the 2001 Computing Curricula Final
  Report

19
CS1 CS2 Strategies

• ACM
• Imperative-first
• Objects-first
• Functional-first
• Breadth-first
• Algorithms-first
• Hardware-first

20
CS1 CS2 Strategies

• ACM
• Imperative-first
• Objects-first
• Functional-first
• Breadth-first
• Algorithms-first
• Hardware-first

• New Strategies
• Components-first
• Games-first

21
Imperative-first

• Most traditional model
• Delays object-oriented programming topics until
  students have a solid foundation in imperative
  programming
• Imperative-first sets par for CS education

22
Objects-first

• Emphasize OO and design immediately
• Motivate control structures and programming as
  secondary topics motivated by OO
• Promising results, especially using Python
• Easy to get wrong

23
Components-first

• Focus on APIs and infrastructures in common use
  by software engineers
• Extremely practical
• Two implementations of components-first were
  surveyed by Howe et. al. in 2004
• Concluded viable and best-suited as an
  advancement upon existing Objects-first classes.

24
Games-first

• Refocus course content on game development
  without altering learning objectives
• Follows the mentality that Imperative-first vs.
  Objects-first is minor compared to course
  content.
• Continuing focus of iteration and advancement
  results are promising.

25
Separating CS1 CS2

• CS1
• Functions as stand-alone class
• Must convey base-level proficiency
• Split-Population
• Desires pragmatism

• CS2
• Secondary Programming Language
• Inadequate Preparation

26
Choice of Language
27
Comfort, Intimidation, and Interest
28
Methods of reducing intimidation
29
The Recipe
Incorporate these items into your CS2 Assignments
by using games
Game development is a maturing experiment in CS1
and is ready for active experimentation in CS2.
The components I prescribe have been shown
benefits in CS1 I expect their benefits to
generalize to CS2
30
Others are working on it

• Lewis and Massingills Framework
• Sung and Panitzs Modules
• Leuteneggers continued iterations

31
And there are many tools
I can personally recommend
32
Next Step

• Controlled experiments on the results of
  implementing components of this recipe in CS2

33
Thanks!
More details, data, and citations are provided in
my Thesis document, available at http//jude.fog
bugz.com Please share your feedback with me,
especially if you try any of this Jude.Allred_at_Co
lorado.edu