Software engineering for millennials, by millennials

Abstract

Software engineers need to manage both technical and professional skills in order to be successful. Our university offers a 5.5 year program that mixes computer science, software and computer engineering, where the first two years are mostly math and physics courses. As such, our students' first real teamwork experience is during the introductory SE course, where they modify open source projects in groups of 6-8. However, students have problems working in such large teams, and feel that the course material and project are "disconnected". We decided to redesign this course in 2017, trying to achieve a balance between theory and practice, and technical and professional skills, with a maximum course workload of 150 hrs per semester. We share our experience in this paper, discussing the strategies we used to improve teamwork and help students learn new technologies in a more autonomous manner. We also discuss what we learned from the two times we taught the new course. CCS CONCEPTS• Social and professional topics → Computer science education;

A Systematic Review of Social Constructivist Pedagogies in Computing and their Effects on Broadening Participation for Women in Undergraduate Computing (Research)

“…Some applications of this learning method allow students to choose which projects they work on, whereas others are assigned by the instructor or professor. Other implementations of this learning approach engage students in research activities to attempt to promote students' scientific reasoning skills [37]. There is no clear consensus as to whether the project-based learning approach is utilized within the classroom or outside of the classroom in most cases.…”