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Feedback is a key element of project-based learning, but only if students reflect on and learn from the feedback they receive. Students often struggle to deeply engage with feedback, whether due to lack of confidence, time, or skill. This work seeks to identify challenges that make reflecting on feedback difficult for students, and to design possible solutions for supporting reflection. Through observing two university game design courses, our research found that without concrete reflection strategies, students tended to be attracted to feedback that looks useful, but does not necessarily them move forward. When we introduced three different reflection scaffolds to support students, we found that the most effective approach promoted interactive learning by allowing time for self-reflection before team reflection, offering time limits, providing activities for feedback prioritization, helping teams align their goals, and equalizing team member participation. We present design guidelines for future systems to support reflection on feedback. 

A wide variety of design strategies, tools, and processes are used across the game industry. Prior work has shown that these processes are often collaborative, with experts in different domains contributing to different parts of the whole. However, the ways in which these professionals give and receive peer feedback have not yet been studied in depth. In this paper we present results from interviews with industry professionals at two game studios, describing the ways they give feedback. We propose a new, six step process that describes the full feedback cycle from making plans to receive feedback to reflecting and acting upon that feedback. This process serves as a starting point for researchers studying peer feedback in games, and allows for comparison of processes across different types of studios. It will also help studios formalize their understanding of their own processes and consider alternative processes that might better fit their needs. 

Peer feedback is a central activity for project-based design education. The prevalence of devices carried by students and the emergence of novel peer feedback systems enables the possibility of collecting and sharing feedback immediately between students during class. However, pen and paper is thought to be more familiar, less distracting for students, and easier for instructors to implement and manage. To evaluate the efficacy of in-class digital feedback systems, we conducted a within-subjects study with 73 students during two weeks of a game design course. After short student presentations, while instructors provided verbal feedback, peers provided feedback either on paper or through a device. The study found that both methods yielded comments of similar quality and quantity, but the digital approach provided additional ways for students to participate and required less effort from the instructors. While both methods produced similar behaviors, students held inaccurate perceptions about their behavior with each method. We discuss design implications for technologies to support in-class feedback exchange. 

Peer feedback systems enable students to get feedback without substantially burdening the instructor. However, current systems typically ask students to provide feedback after class; this introduces challenges for ensuring relevant, timely, diverse, and sufficient amounts of feedback, and reduces time available for student reflection. This paper explores the current landscape of peer feedback tools and introduces a novel system for in-class peer review called PeerPresents where students can quickly exchange feed-back on projects without being burdened by additional work outside of class. Through an exploratory study with Google docs and a preliminary evaluation of PeerPresents, we find students can receive immediate, copious, and diverse peer feedback through a structured in-class activity. Students also described the feedback they received as helpful and reported that they gave more feedback than without using the system. These early results demonstrate the potential benefits of in-class peer feedback systems.