Computer Graphics teaching challenges: Guidelines for balancing depth, complexity and mentoring in a confinement context

• Main Authors: Rui Rodrigues, Teresa Matos, Alexandre Valle de Carvalho, Jorge G. Barbosa, Rodrigo Assaf, Rui Nóbrega, António Coelho, A. Augusto de Sousa
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2021-06-01
• Series: Graphics and Visual Computing
• Subjects: Computer Graphics education; Project-based learning; Remote teaching; Teaching during pandemics
• Online Access: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666629421000048

We discuss challenges, methodologies, and approaches for teaching Computer Graphics (CG) courses in a confinement context, together with assessing the experience and the proposal of guidelines. Our approach balances CG topics’ depth with creating relevant and attractive content for a CG course while coping with communication, support, and assessment issues. These are especially important in a pandemic context where online classes may reduce students’ engagement and hinder communication with educators. We refined the model used over the last years based on a two-stage approach (first tutorial, then project-based) relying on an in-house WebGL-based educational library – WebCGF – that simplifies onboarding while keeping connections to the underlying concepts and technologies. The confinement constraints led to complement that model with additional collaborative tools and mentoring strategies. Those included, apart from the standard synchronous remote classes, the use of a group communication tool for structured community engagement and video presentation, and a Git-based code management system specifically configured for classes and groups, which allowed following more closely the development process of each student. Results show that the performance and students’ engagement achieved was similar to that of recent years, which led us to a set of guidelines to consider in these contexts.