Abstract:

Remote delivery of university courses became commonplace during the coronavirus pandemic. During the shift to remote delivery challenges were observed with student motivation and engagement. Many students took to playing popular online computer games as a way to connect and interact with their peers while isolated. This presented an opportunity to leverage the interest in online gaming among students to engage them with their learning and assessment.

This paper reports the practice of using contemporary gaming trends to engage students in both their learning and assessment. Two separate examples are presented with two separate cohorts of students. Two of the most popular online games during the pandemic (‘Fall Guys’ and ‘Among Us’) were integrated into module delivery and assessment of computer game development and software engineering courses at a UK university. The methods used, reaction of the students and a reflection of the advantages and disadvantages of the approach are reported.

Keywords:

Covid, engagement, software engineering, gaming, game development, remote teaching.