Interdisciplinary projects in the academic studio

Paul Gestwicki, Brian McNely

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

21 Scopus citations

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.

Original languageEnglish
Article number8
JournalACM Transactions on Computing Education
Volume16
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 2016

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 ACM

Keywords

  • And Phrases: Higher education
  • Computer science education
  • Design-based research
  • Interdisciplinary education
  • Project-based learning
  • Scrum
  • Sociocultural cognition theory

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Computer Science
  • Education

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Interdisciplinary projects in the academic studio'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this