WIP: Introducing Active Learning in a Software Engineering Course

Abstract

Stein Brunvand is an Associate Professor in the College of Education, Health, and Human Services at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. He earned his PhD in Learning Technologies at the University of Michigan. Prior to that, he taught elementary school for six years. Stein is interested in the enhancement of learning environments through the integration of technology and enjoys working with preservice and practicing teachers to learn about how this can be done more effectively. He has conducted research on the impact of research-based professional development on the integration of technology in K-12 classrooms and explored the use of e-portfolios in teaching and learning with undergraduate and graduate students. Dr. Marouane Kessentini, University of Michigan-DearbornDr. Marouane Kessentini is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer and Information Science at the University of Michigan Dearborn. He is the founder of the Search-Based Software Engineering (SBSE) research lab. He has several collaborations with different industrial companies on the use computational search, machine learning and evolutionary algorithms to address several software engineering problems such as software quality, software testing, software migration, software evolution, etc. He received his Phd from University of Montreal in 2012 and a Presidential BSc Award from the President of Tunisia in 2007. He received many grants from both industry and federal agencies and published around 75 papers in search-based software engineering journals and conferences, including 3 best paper awards. He has served as program committee member in several major conferences (GECCO, MODELS, ICMT, SSBSE, etc.), an editorial board member of several journals (SQJ, ASE, IST, TEVC and EMSE), and an organization member of many conferences and workshops. He was also the co-chair of the SBSE track at the GECCO2014 and GECCO2015 conferences and he is now the general chair of of the 8th IEEE Search Based Software Engineering Symposium (SSBSE2016). He is also the founder of the North American Symposium on Search Based Software Engineering, funded by the National Science WIP: Introducing Active Learning in a Software Engineering Course AbstractThis paper describes the authors' experiences introducing active learning opportunities in junior level software engineering courses. The project team critically examined existing software engineering courses at our institutions and created new active learning style instructional materials for selected course topics. We devised delivery strategies that incorporated academic research findings and industry best practices. Based on our assessment data, we believe that students participating in the activities created for our courses are better equipped with fundamental theoretical knowledge and invaluable hands-on experiences that can measurably increase their ability to contribute to the software industry.

Student Ownership of Learning: A Student’s Experience

“…Studies have been published on a broad range of agile topics such as voluntary, self-organized, and cross-functional teams in time-intensive academic settings (Zhang & Dorn, 2012). Agile's most popular framework, Scrum, has also been examined in the context of project-based learning (Saadé & Shah, 2016) and semi-capstone experiences (Magana et al, 2018;Maxim et al, 2017). This study follows the case of an independent honors student developing software as a creative works research project.…”

Measuring Broader Impact of NSF-funded Project on Software Engineering Education

“…That adaptation includes the effective use of the assessment instruments which come with the ALTs. The recommended flipped classroom delivery strategy of the ALTs is discussed in another paper [19] .…”

“…The focus groups and the workshops brought people from different institutions and corporations to work closely together. As a result PIs have published multiple conference papers [10,19,20,21,22,23] , and journal papers [24,25,26,27,28,29] with academic partners. In addition the PIs are working on projects of mutual interest with the academia and industry.…”

Using Active Learning and Gamification to Teach Software Engineering in Game Design Courses

“…Engineering educators regard experiential learning as the best way to train the next generation of engineers [7]. It is reasonable to believe that the soft skills practiced in active learning classrooms can improve the capabilities software engineering students and better prepare them for their capstone projects [8]. Active learning is "embodied in a learning environment where the teachers and students are actively engaged with the content through discussions, problemsolving, critical thinking, debate and a host of other activities that promote interaction among learners, instructors and the material" [9].…”