Instructional strategies for teaching Unity

Welcome to the third unit of Unity’s Professional Development course for Instructors. Whereas the last unit focused on planning your Unity course, this unit covers how to successfully run that course. Here’s what we’ll cover:

• Instructional best practices for teaching emerging technologies such as Unity, and how these strategies differ from other courses
• How to troubleshoot with Unity, and processes you can implement to help your students troubleshoot effectively
• Recommendations and templates for assessing and grading Unity projects

This unit will culminate in a short video that you share with others in the course to explain your course design, pedagogical choices, and future plans.

Let’s begin by learning about some recommended instructional strategies for teaching Unity.

Imagine you are in the middle of a class session, and one of your students raises their hand to ask how they can use AI behavioral programming for non-player characters. The only problem is you have no idea how to do this. How will you handle it?

Unity is a sophisticated and ever-evolving technology. It is very common for educators to co-learn the tool right alongside their students and to encounter the above scenario (or something like it) many times over.

Check out the video below for some co-learning strategies from the Unity educator community. Throughout the video, notice the headings where we have synthesized some of the key points for you.

Take a moment to think about your approach when it comes to co-learning. What are a few strategies you will keep in your back pocket? How can you continually remind yourself - and your students – that no one is a Unity expert for long, and that continual learning is part of the process?

Optional

Review these co-learning case studies from fellow educators for additional ideas and inspiration.

Imagine your class is working on a project you’ve assigned, when a student raises their hand and says “I’m done!”. What will you do? Or, if you are teaching a more competency-based or self-paced Unity course, how will you support students who are on unit 1 as well as students on unit 5?

Differentiated progress and pacing is common in Unity courses. In the video below, our Education Ambassadors provide tips and tricks to manage this scenario. Again, pay attention to the headers throughout the video for a summary of the key points.

Optional

Take a moment to review these differentiated pacing case studies, and make a note of two or three of your own strategies.