Design and Development of Digital Games

专业详情

The M.A. degree program in Design and Development of Digital Games is a 32-33 point degree program that prepares students to design, develop, implement and evaluate digital games and closely related technologies (such as mobile apps, interactive media, virtual and augmented reality) for learning and social impact in both formal and informal educational settings. This program is unique in that the curriculum is structured to examine game design from a combination of social, cultural, cognitive, and affective perspectives. Students who are studying the design and development of games for education as a concentration need the degree to reflect this area of study, which is not only optimal but necessary for their intended goals.

Games and closely related technologies are increasingly important for learning and for professional education and training in schools, medicine, business, entertainment, and other domains. Rapid changes in these technologies are reshaping the ways we create, evaluate, reflect, reason, and learn. The interdisciplinary nature of game design has led to more creative approaches in teaching and learning in both informal learning contexts (such as museums and homes) and formal learning contexts (classrooms, schools, and workplaces).

The skills involved in designing, developing and studying games are relevant to a wide variety of careers, for instance: instructional design, coding, web and app development, project management, user experience (UX) design, illustration, 3D modeling, and so on. Whether pursuing a career specifically in games (commercial or educational game design) or intending to use games as a means to other endeavors, this program is an exciting and modern platform for a future career journey.

Courses in the M.A. degree program provide a solid foundation in both theoretical and practical aspects to the design of educational technology (of which games are a part), which are very relevant to the design of games that target learning—often called educational games. Similarly, the development of educational (or other) games depends upon the ability to program such games, or, at the very least, to have enough programming knowledge to be able to communicate appropriately with programmers who will develop games based on design specifications.

Therefore, courses on game development, for example, complement the required programming course sequences that teach programming skills that may be applied to games.

A minimum of 32 points of coursework is required for completion of the degree. Course credits from previous, non-Teachers College work cannot be transferred in to count toward the 32 points required for the M.A. degree.