research-article

Interdisciplinary Projects in the Academic Studio

Authors:

Paul Gestwicki,

Brian McNelyAuthors Info & Claims

ACM Transactions on Computing Education (TOCE), Volume 16, Issue 2

Article No.: 8, Pages 1 - 24

https://doi.org/10.1145/2732157

Published: 08 March 2016 Publication History

Abstract

We define and describe the academic studio model for interdisciplinary, undergraduate, project-oriented education. This model brings faculty, students, and community partners together to investigate an open-ended academic question, and their collaboration yields an original product that represents their inquiry. The academic studio integrates agile software development practice, project-oriented pedagogy, and sociocultural cognition theories. Scrum provides the framework in which self-organizing, cross-functional teams define their methodology, and Scrum practices facilitate assessment of student learning outcomes.

This model emerged from design-based research across six studio instances, each of which investigated the relationship of fun, games, and learning through the development of educational video games. Formal and informal analysis of these instances gives rise to several themes, including the importance of a formalized process to encourage learning and productivity, the critical role of an expert faculty mentor, the need to combine academic and industrial practice to manage the inherent challenges of collaborative software development, and the unique characteristics of learning outcomes arising from this model. We conclude that the academic studio model is beneficial to student learning and faculty development, and we encourage the adoption, adaptation, and evaluation of the model.

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Index Terms

Interdisciplinary Projects in the Academic Studio
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing education
      1. Computing education programs
        Computer science education
    2. Management of computing and information systems
      1. Project and people management
2. Software and its engineering
  1. Software creation and management
    1. Software development process management
  2. Software notations and tools
    1. Software configuration management and version control systems

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cover image ACM Transactions on Computing Education

ACM Transactions on Computing Education Volume 16, Issue 2

March 2016

121 pages

EISSN:1946-6226

DOI:10.1145/2894200

Editor:
Chris Hundhausen
Washington State University, USA

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Copyright © 2016 ACM.

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Publication History

Published: 08 March 2016

Accepted: 01 January 2015

Revised: 01 November 2014

Received: 01 March 2014

Published in TOCE Volume 16, Issue 2

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