[game_edu] Evaluating individual students on semester> long project classes

[McGill, Monica]

Ian,

I think removing students from the class or reassigning them to another
project can have serious implications. I have not yet followed up on that at
my university to see how to avoid a very messy situation with a student if I
were to kick them out of class. (There is probably a way, possibly like
having a certain grade at midterm, but I still need to find out.)

What I have done instead, which has worked in the past a couple of times in
severe cases, is to start to meet with the student early at the first sign
of trouble. Since I provide a lot of formative feedback via grades after
each sprint, students have a good feel for where they stand early in the
semester. By doing some simple math, I can start telling them early that
they need to get a xx% on all future projects here on out to pass the class.
At some point, I will know when they can no longer pass the class. In two
cases, they have dropped the course after I explained that they were no
longer able to pass. In this manner, they have sufficient warning and plenty
of time to change their behavior, and I have a documented record of their
grades. (And it ultimately is "their choice" to drop the class they paid $2K
to take.)

Their teams were relieved when they dropped. Both teams had to rescope a
bit, unfortunately, but that's what they would experience "out there."

I'm definitely curious what others do in these situations.

Monica


> 

> Message: 2

> Date: Sat, 7 Jan 2012 12:00:52 -0800 (PST)

> From: Ian Schreiber <ai864 at yahoo.com>

> Subject: Re: [game_edu] Evaluating individual students on semester

> long project classes

> To: IGDA Game Education Listserv <game_edu at igda.org>

> Message-ID:

> <1325966452.55425.YahooMailNeo at web39708.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

> 

> Related issue that just occurred to me, for projects that span multiple

> academic terms (e.g. a year-long senior project). How do you handle course

> registrations? There are all kinds of issues here:

> 

> * Growing the team. In many professional projects, you start with a core team

> that hashes out the design and gets things to the prototype stage, then during

> the production phase more people are added to do the actual work.

> ? - Should student projects reflect this? Does anyone have, say, a capstone

> experience where a bunch of juniors are brought in during the last half of the

> year to do a bunch of the grunt work, and those students will then become the

> core team for their own senior project the following year?

> ? - Even if not, student projects do tend to grow in complexity during design.

> If one of the team has a friend who wants to contribute to the project (or who

> has already been contributing), do you have mechanisms for bringing those

> people into the class so they can get academic credit for their work, even if

> it's only for the last part?

> 

> * Shrinking the team. There's always that one team member who is a pile of

> dead weight. Terribly demoralizing to the rest of their team and tends to drag

> everyone down. In industry, these people would eventually be fired from the

> company, or perhaps moved to a different role.

> ? - Do students need to reach some kind of minimum bar to enroll in the

> continuation of the class? If they don't contribute what they need to in Fall,

> does your school even allow you to deny them entry in Spring? (This might

> involve the continuation having "prerequisite: B or above in previous course"

> or just "prerequisite: instructor permission" for example.) Do you do this

> based on grades? Based on your own choice as instructor? Do you give teams the

> power/responsibility of firing one of their own ("voting them off the island"

> as it were)?

> ? - In the case of students who were dragging down their team, what happens to

> them? Do they have to wait until the next year to try again, essentially

> having their graduation delayed by a full year due to one class? Are they

> allowed to continue, but they have to work on a new team or on their own

> individual project instead? Or do they stay on, and you just have to instruct

> the team to deal with it internally as best they can?

> 

> * Students who voluntarily leave. The equivalent of an employee who quits

> mid-project. This can happen for all kinds of reasons: a student might have

> family or financial issues which force a leave of absence from school, for

> example, or they might just be burned out and need some time to recover.

> ? - Do you have a mechanism built-in to the project-based course to deal with

> key team members leaving: ability to bring in replacements, or just

> cross-training so that no individual on the team is irreplacable? Do you have

> students do contingency planning for what to do if each individual fails to

> get their work done for whatever reason? Should you?

> ? - For classes where you have several student teams, what if a student wants

> to switch teams? Does it make a difference WHY they want to switch (just

> feeling more excited about one of the other projects, vs. personality

> conflicts with their team)? Do you make these decisions yourself, or do you

> allow the students on each project to make the call (and if so, by what

> mechanism: does it have to be unanimous on both teams to allow one student to

> move between them, or just a majority, etc.)?

> 

> I know what I've done in the past, but am curious if others have run into

> these issues... and if so, what you did about them at the time, and also if

> you've formalized the process a bit so that these kinds of things are handled

> up-front in the syllabus now...

> 

> - Ian



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