Annual Review · 2026 · Jamie Brown
This year I rebuilt my entire teaching portfolio from scratch: two Game UX courses and the four-course iOS sequence. No inherited lectures, no recycled slide decks, no legacy assignments. Every activity, every assignment, every starter project, every syllabus is new, written this year, and already validated by a full student cohort.
Feb 2026 to Aug 2026 · Shipped live to students
Six courses, rebuilt completely. Not revised, not refreshed: replaced. Nothing from the old versions survived, because nothing deserved to.
The two Game UX courses went from an empty repository on May 15 to a tagged v1.0 serving their first cohort on May 31. Sixteen days, 63 commits, and students were learning on it the day it launched. The four iOS activity databases were built out from February through May on the same terms: every page written new.
| Course | Focus | Activities | Assignments |
|---|---|---|---|
| UXP3801 | Game UX Foundations | 18 | 4 |
| UXP349 | Game UX Refinement | 14 | 4 |
| iOS 1 | SwiftUI foundations | 27 | 4 |
| iOS 2 | Networking and data | 17 | 4 |
| iOS 3 | Architecture | 14 | 4 |
| iOS 4 | Portfolio | 9 | 4 |
| Total | 99 | 24 |
Counts are conservative. They exclude 13 pass/fail checkpoints, 7 reference pages, and 2 warm-up mini-activities also written this year; with those included, the rebuild totals roughly 145 new pages of course content.
The iOS assignments do not begin at a blank screen. I wrote 14 complete Xcode starter projects, 98 Swift files, each with a README that doubles as the assignment brief. Every function signature, property name, and type is provided; several projects ship with failing test suites the student works to turn green. Students never wonder what to build, only how to build it, which is exactly where the learning is.
70+ written feedback documents · First cohort
A two-hour lecture is the wrong tool for teaching people to build things. It delivers one explanation, at one pace, to students who are each stuck somewhere different, and it measures attendance instead of understanding. My courses run instead on what actually moves student work forward: one-on-one working sessions and individualized written feedback on every submission. For the first cohort alone, about a dozen students, I wrote more than 70 individualized feedback documents. That record is open for inspection: go back and read any of my feedback, and you will find it detailed and highly specific to that student's individual work, not boilerplate with a grade attached. Every student gets a version of the course shaped to what they are actually building.
This is a studio model, not a broadcast model. The students noticed.
“I feel like after the Zoom call that we had made me understand it better and helped a lot. I wish your website was for the whole school; this could help someone in any type of class do better!”
Britney · UXP349
In their words · Unprompted
“I’ve felt more confident in these two months in your classes than at any point in my entire program. … You’ve empowered me as a student, as a designer, and simply as a human being.”
Chandalynn · Game UX program
“I was honestly beginning to question if perusing this was the right choice or not, but this class has really reinvigorated me and reminded me why I wanted to do this to begin with.”
Alexandra · UXP3801
“… this assignment has been one of my favorites throughout the program. … Your comments consistently challenged me to think beyond simply creating attractive interfaces and instead focus on the reasoning behind each design decision.”
Travis · Game UX
“The curriculum was truly engaging, and I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of designing a new, complementary project to elevate our professional portfolios.”
Charles · UXP349
“I really enjoyed learning about game UX, and I am proud of what I was able to create with your guidance. … I will definitely carry what I learned here into my career.”
Alexis · UXP349
“I’m really encouraged by your mentorship approach … I value the opportunity to learn in a ‘studio-like’ environment.”
Dakota · UXP3801
“I have really enjoyed this class the amount of input and suggestions you gave really has inspired me to finish this and not just finish but try and carry it over into my android classes as well.”
Brandy · iOS
“I appreciate you for listening and understanding when I wasn’t in the right head space. … Your support is what keeps us going.”
Jeremiah · UXP349
End-of-course survey · Anonymous by design · Six respondents
The end-of-course survey has no name field, on purpose. Nobody answering it was performing for a grade or for me. The results: every single respondent gave the new materials a perfect five for helping them understand the material, for holding their attention against every other Full Sail course they have taken, and for polish and professionalism. And every single one said the school should keep building courses this way.
“I wish had this for the last two years; I could have done sooo much better. This is the way I learn.”
Anonymous · Course survey
“wish all of full sail was like this i would have done better”
Anonymous · Course survey
“You’ll design a game in any style that interests you and the professor doesn’t ghost you.”
Anonymous · Course survey
“I would love to see more courses adopt this format, as it creates a more interactive and enjoyable learning experience.”
Anonymous · Course survey
The conditions it was built under
None of this was assigned, resourced, or requested. And I will be direct about the part an annual review usually smooths over: I did not wait for permission. I built these courses quietly and launched them to students, because building openly had already proven to mean not building at all. The policy on the books still mandates two hours of synchronous lecture, a tool that fits nothing about how these courses teach. So along the way, unprompted, I also did Full Sail's homework for it:
The results speak for the model. What they do not explain is why it had to happen this way. I should not have to break rules to do exceptional work for our students. The school should want to be the reason work like this exists, not the reason it has to be hidden. This year, it was the latter, and the work happened anyway.
One request · It costs nothing
This review comes with a single request. Unofficially, as my manager: free me from the policies we have already discussed. Completely. The two-hour synchronous lecture requirement is first among them.
There is a live demonstration of what that freedom buys in front of you right now: this site, the review you are reading and every document it links to, is the kind of thing I can stand up in an afternoon. Tools this powerful are arriving monthly. I see them early and I turn them into things that help students learn, immediately. That is why I want the shackles off. The world our students graduate into is changing fast, I intend to keep converting each new advantage into their education at the speed it appears, and I should not have to fight a battle for every inch to do it.
The official fix is already drafted; the policy brief proposing a replacement for the lecture mandate is written and ready for Academic Leadership. What I am asking from you is simpler and faster: while that machinery turns, keep those policies off my back and let me run my courses the way this document proves they should be run.
I am not asking for budget, headcount, or recognition. I am asking for room. Everything above is what I do with it.
Next year
The same energy is available. It will be spent either way.
The only question is where that energy goes. It can go to building and innovating for our students. Or it can go to continually justifying myself against ill-informed blanket policies aimed at underachieving employees. I only have enough energy for one. You pick.