Autumn 2020


Lecture: TR 9:40-11:00am
Ryerson 276
Instructor: Prof. Franklin, teaching webpage, research webpage
TAs: Zack Crenshaw, Emma Peterson
Grader: TBD
Instructional Office Hours : MF 10-11am (Franklin), T 1:30-3:30 (Salac)
Lab (CSIL 2): Thursday 2-3:20pm, 3:30-4:50pm

Goals

Welcome! In CS 209, we delve into the interdisciplinary endeavor of creating educational applications. This course covers technology, psychology (e.g., motivation, engagement), and pedagogy (e.g., constructivism) as they apply to educational technology so that students can design and build an educational learning application. Labs focus on developing expertise in technology, and readings supplement lecture discussions on the human components of education. The specific goals of the course are these:
  • Learn education theory on how people learn
  • Learn design principles for game design
  • Learn how to create large-scale software in a team
  • Learn a technology in which to implement a learning application

This course will consist of readings (with associated questions), videos from me that introduce the subjects of the readings, discussion-based lecture periods to discuss readings, their relationships to our experiences, and implications towards game design, labs to develop technical skills, and a group design and implementation project that brings together everything learned in the course. Students will make presentations about their project progress. In addition, graduate students will lead a discussion on a learning subject. Finally, there will be a final report on your game design and how the design elements relate to the concepts in the class in addition to the video demonstrating their game.

Getting Help

We do not make use of Canvas; We will use piazza instead - CMSC 209 Computers for Learning.

If you have questions about the course, and those questions are in a sense impersonal — that is, they are about course material or course logistics — we ask that you post those questions publicly on piazza, rather than contacting any of the staff members directly. This ensures you will receive the fastest, most consistent possible response from the staff. Since students usually have common questions, posting public questions is also very efficient for your classmates as well. As yet another advantage, it avoids duplication of work on the part of the staff.

If you have a specific question about your implementation - if any code or partial solution is involved - then ask a private question on piazza, which is invisible to your classmates.

In general, there should be no reason for personal email unless it is for extenuating circumstances.

Lab Sessions

Lab sessions have been turned into office hours. The labs are fully asynchronous. Make sure you start early so that you can take advantage of office hours before it's too late. The previous purpose of the lab period was to get everyone started on the lab to dissuade procrastination.

Zoom Recording

Under some circumstances, such as a student with disabilities accommodations, I will record class periods if everyone consents. They will be available for 90 days. You are not allowed to share classroom recordings with anyone not officially enrolled in the course for any reason. If you wish not to be identified, make sure your camera is off and you use a pseudoname when logging in.

Resources

Textbooks:
Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games, Third Edition 3rd Edition
Learning C# by Developing Games with Unity 2020: An enjoyable and intuitive approach to getting started with C# programming and Unity, 5th Edition

Grading / Assignments

There will be weekly reading / writing assignments as well as programming assignments to build your game engine. Everything is turned in via Gradescope.

Each student’s final grade will be computed according to the following formula:

  • per-lecture reading assignment questions 20%,
  • in-class participation 5%,
  • presentations 5%,
  • midterm 15%,
  • labs 25%,
  • final project 30%.
What precisely constitutes an A, B, etc. will be determined by the collective performance of the class. You are guaranteed not to get lower than straight scale (A>=93%, A- (90->93), B+ (97->90), etc.). Due to the group project, a student's final grade in the course can be no more than one letter grade higher than their performance on individually graded portions. For example, if a student has a C on individually-graded aspects of the course, then they are eligible to earn no better than a B when taking into account the group project.

In order to account for the uncertainty of the world right now, I will drop the lowest 3 in-class participation scores and 2 reading question scores. If you have a technology issue that prevents you from attending synchronous Zoom class sessions, contact me privately.

Reading questions are completed on Gradescope prior to class

Late Policy

Reading questions and in-class participation questions are not accepted late. Normally, I don't allow any late assignments. However, this is not a normal time. If you have an extended illness or have extra responsibilities at home due to relatives' illness, or other impacts from the pandemic, we can work around it. Late requests must be made prior to the deadline, and they must be accompanied by the full reason and a summary of what you accomplished prior to the deadline. The expectation is that you work the entire week on the assignment, not that you wait until Sunday to begin what is due on Monday.

Regrade requests

Regrade requests for weekly assignments and exams must be submitted within 5 working days (one week) of when you received the grade / feedback.

Academic Honesty

In this course, as in all your courses, you must adhere to college-wide honesty guidelines as set forth at http://college.uchicago.edu/ policies-regulations/academic-integrity-student-conduct. The college's rules have the final say in all cases. Our own paraphrase is as follows:
    Never copy work from any other source and submit it as your own. Never allow your work to be copied or seen by another student. Never submit work identical to another student's. Never look at someone's working solution in order to solve your error. Document all collaboration. Generally, collaboration is forbidden on the reading portion of homework assignments. Cite your sources.

Groups obviously share code amongst themselves, but they are not allowed to share code between groups in any shape or form.

We will enforce the following rule as well: any student who is under suspicion of having violated academic honesty rules will not be allowed to withdraw from this course.

Withdraws, Pass/Fail Requests

All requests for Pass/Fail must be received before the project presentations on the last week of class. Note that if you take this course P/F, you may not use it to satisfy requirements for a computer science major or minor. Withdraw requests are now handled by your college advisor, not the instructor nor the major advisor.