Emphasizing soft skills and team development in an educational digital game design course

Abstract

Engineering education has evolved from providing students solely with technical skills to providing them with courses that provide students with the non-technical "soft skills". Among the soft skills desired by employers are student's ability to receive and respond to feedback, manage multiple requirements, and work in multidisciplinary teams. The use of Capstone courses in Computer Science education has been a means of providing students with the aforementioned soft skills and experiences prior to graduation. We define and implement a model for an educational video game design and development course that provides students with real-world game design experiences. Students learn the complexity of developing an educational game while functioning in multidisciplinary teams. Additionally, we provide students with an opportunity to visit K-12 schools to witness, first hand, the conditions in which their video games will be used. Finally, we present lessons learned and discuss methods for the successful development of multidisciplinary courses in Computer Science Education.