Last you heard from me I put out a release for the 10 week prototype. A pretty big thing has happened since; I’ve become a substitute teacher! I got contacted a bit unexpectedly from Tobias Solem, a teacher at IT-Gymnasiet (equivalent to upper secondary school in the US), who’d become ill and needed some one to take over two classes a week for a while. And since it’s only a few hours a week I can continue with my game development at the same time.
Teaching is something I’ve thought about doing part time before but never really felt like there was a way for me to do other than actually studying to become a teacher. So I was very happy to get this opportunity!
Though I would lie if I said I wasn’t scared to do it, I remember several terrible substitute teachers I had during my studies and I feared I’d perform as badly as they did. And both classes revolve around game design and 3D modelling which isn’t exactly something I’m an expert at.
But Tobias and I had a pretty long discussion where I came to understand that I knew more than enough about the topics to teach as a temp and the fact that I was passionate about games and wanted to do a good job teaching would set me a part from the awful substitute teachers from my past.
So far I’ve only had a few lessons but other than a few issues out of my control things have gone very smoothly I must say.
One class is for first year students and hasn’t required much actual teaching since they already have an assignment to create something resembling a game design document and it relies on things they’ve already learned in previous courses. I have only had one lesson with them so far where I moved around, getting to know them and the games they’re designing.
The second class has been more hands on where I’ve most recently did a basic tutorial of working in Cinema 4D, the modelling tool they’re using. I’ve never used Cinema 4D before so I’ve had to do a bunch of practising myself just to get comfortable with it.
Similarly to the other class they also have one assigment for the entire course but here they are supposed to design and model an item for a game. They are required to motivate why the item exists and how it is supposed to interact with the game and its game mechanics. I find the assignment pretty interesting and since I’ve had to learn Cinema 4D anyway I started doing it myself.
Again, I’ve walked around to each person to get to know them and what they have chosen to work on. I want to build a connection to each and everyone so they feel comfortable discussing ideas or asking questions.
So tomorrow is the first lesson since the easter vacation and I’m very much looking forward to it!