Game programming in CS0: a scaffolded approach

Authors:
Michael Panitz;Kelvin Sung;Rebecca Rosenberg
Affiliations:
Cascadia Community College, NE, Bothell, WA;University of Washington, Bothell, WA;CSU Monterey Bay, Seaside, CA
Venue:
Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges
Year:
2010

Citing 12
Cited 2

Pre-games: games designed to introduce CS1 and CS2 programming assignments

SIGCSE '03 Proceedings of the 34th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education
Teaching with games: the Minesweeper and Asteroids experience

Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges
Computer games and CS education: why and how

Proceedings of the 36th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education
Games as a "flavor" of CS1

Proceedings of the 37th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education
Introductory game creation: no programming required

Proceedings of the 37th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education
The Game Maker's Apprentice: Game Development for Beginners

The Game Maker's Apprentice: Game Development for Beginners
Gender, achievement, and persistence in an undergraduate computer science program

ACM SIGMIS Database
A games first approach to teaching introductory programming

Proceedings of the 38th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education
Through the looking glass: teaching CS0 with Alice

Proceedings of the 38th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education
Design of a media and gaming sequence for graduates in applied CS

Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges
Game-themed programming assignments: the faculty perspective

Proceedings of the 39th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education
Some field experience with Alice

Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges

Implementing IT0/CS0 with scratch, app inventor forandroid, and lego mindstorms

Proceedings of the 2011 conference on Information technology education
Extra-curricular computing engagement, academic achievement, and income attainment: from youth to adulthood

Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges

Quantified Score

Hi-index	0.00

Visualization

Abstract

In an effort to appeal to students who would not traditionally take a Computer Science course, we have created a CS0 course that scaffolds students into (basic) game programming using first the GameMaker tool and then C#. Our goal was to create an engaging, accessible course that that would attract students who had not previously taken any Computer Science courses, and that would provide them with a firm foundation of programming knowledge. Pre-term and post-term testing indicated that students learned a substantial amount using this approach, and that students preferred this scaffolded approach to a single-language approach overall.