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Continued from Page 23ffff“In order to generalize the practice, we need convincing research results,” she says. “I’m collaborating with professors in the Charter College of Education to study how students respond to the project-based learning model. We’re breaking the learning process down into different elements in our evaluation. A project must be challenging enough to motivate students. It should simulate a project in a professional environment and build students’ career skills.”Dong explains that students also require infrastructure support – elements like effective coaching from instructors or TAs, short video tutorials, interactive online learning communities, and a database of common errors and solutions – in order to succeed at each level of the project. And they need opportunities to reflect on what they’ve learned, in order to link theoretical content to project experiences.The project is funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Transforming Undergraduate Education in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics program. It teaches computer science students effective communication, presentation, and collaboration skills, which are often neglected in the traditional classroom. The course is designed to motivate students to learn essential CS core content through peer interaction and encouragement. Students not only produce a robust end product, but also receive practical insights intothe real-world work environment.“It’s hands-on game development from the game concept design, character modeling and animating, and programming to the game launch through a dedicated website,” says Kang. “This project gives students thepractical experience and an understanding of the complexities of the software development process that they will need in order to face challenges in the industry.”Kang says game programming attracts many students to CS, and the course uniquely combines it with large-scale software development in the industry setting.“It is a new and exciting approach that willattract students to the study of CS by providing a high-interest context for instruction in fundamental programming and software development methods that are applicable across academia and industry,” she says.“To be a good teacher, you must constantly adjust your teaching to help students learn,” notes Dong. “This student-centered teaching model puts technology in a supporting role and requires instructors to pay attention to student learning outcomes.”This course model, developed by Dong and Warter-Perez, has been adopted as a Proven Course Redesign by the Chancellor’s Office of the California State University. This means faculty across CSU can write grants to adopt and adapt the course model.“We are creating a professional learning community across the CSU to discuss not only collaborative project-based learning, but also flipped classrooms, supplemental instruction, the development of a free test and resource bank for core engineering courses, and more,” says Warter-Perez. “Our focus is to help students become self-directed learners who think critically about what they’re learning and how they can apply it.”GENERATING A GAME PLANEun-Young (Elaine) Kang, professor of computer science (CS) knows that the human inclination to create and compete can be harnessed as a learning opportunity. She is collaborating with San Francisco State University to implement a software development course in which the students create a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) with a variety of complex software components.24