2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The authors teach two courses focused on software engineering and game development. They critically examined lecture heavy versions of these courses for opportunities to introduce active learning materials in both the face-to-face delivery and online delivery of the courses. Using active learning techniques, the authors sought to improve the students’ levels of engagement while teaching how to design, implement, and test 2D and 3D video games. The students learn to use agile software engineering practices, most notably Scrum and Kanban, to deliver incremental game prototypes in each course whereas the focus of the second course is a term-long roleplay where students play the roles of developer-owners of a failing game company. In-person and online students were surveyed to measure their perceived levels of engagement with course activities. Using these assessments the authors demonstrate that it is possible to move an in-person active learning course to online delivery without significant loss of student satisfaction or perceptions of engagement with the course material. Ultimately, credit belongs to the active learning components of the classes and the levels of student interaction that accompany them for making this transition possible despite the environmental changes.