Effective Pedagogical Principles and Practices in Teaching Software Engineering through Projects

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Effective Pedagogical Principles and Practices
inTeaching Software Engineeringthrough Projects

• Valentin Razmov
• Dept. of Computer Science Engineering
• University of Washington

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My Goals
Inform
Involve
Inspire
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Outline

• Background, Context, and Goals
• Main Pedagogical Principles
• Learning Formula
• Practices Related to Doing
• Practices Related to Feedback
• Practices Related to Reflecting

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BackgroundCourse Goals and Organization

• Course Software Engineering (intro)
• Enrollments varied between 8 and 39
• Learning Goals How to work effectively in large
  teams and deliver value on long-term projects
• Organization
• Students work in teams of 6-8 on term-long
  projects
• Project milestones every 2.5 weeks
• Post-milestone events
• Informal feedback discussions and QA with
  instructors
• Anonymous peer feedback within teams
• Individual reflective writings on project-related
  experiences

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Main Organizing Principles

• Giving students an opportunity to correct early
  missteps
• Blending soft topics into the curriculum
• Keeping open the bi-directional feedback channels
  b/w students and instructor
• Enabling prompt adjustments
• Having students own their decisions
• Keeping students motivation high and maintaining
  their vested interest
• Establishing a baseline for evaluating changes
  between course offerings

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Learning Formula

• Learning (Doing Feedback Reflection)
• Synergy between the three components

• Positive feedback loop between them, not a fixed
  contribution of each component
• More/less of one element means more/less of the
  others too

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Practices Related to Doing

• Incremental project deliveries
• Allows time to fail early, try again, and recover
• Builds confidence and creates space for feedback
• Early integration of project components
• a.k.a. zero-feature release
• Sets up all needed tools to work reliably
  together
• Use of professional tools
• Helps to recreate a realistic project environment
• Students propose and pick projects
• Increases dedication and gives students a stake
• A project is a playground for learning, not an
  end goal

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Practices Related to FeedbackJust-in-Time
Feedback

• Increases relevance of feedback
• Feedback to/from students, to/from instructors
• Enables instructors to frequently see where
  students are
• Mechanisms
• Minute Paper
• Mid-term and end-of-term student surveys
• Reflective writings
• Anonymous feedback
• Classroom interaction systems (e.g., Classroom
  Presenter)

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Just-in-Time Feedbackin Action

• Post-milestone in-class project retrospective

• Minute Paper using Classroom Presenter

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Just-in-Time Feedbackin Action (cont.)

• Student surveys
• Mid-term / end-of-term
• Specific questions to find out what worked well,
  what did not work well, what changes may help
• Goals evaluate risks, reveal surprises, and
  compare with previous measurements
• Survey evolution based on predictability of the
  responses, need to elaborate on specific areas,
  need to cover new themes/aspects featured in the
  latest offerings

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Practices Related to FeedbackIterative Peer
Feedback

• Each student provides and receives feedback
• Automated collection, aggregation, and
  dissemination of peer feedback results

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Practices Related to FeedbackFeedback on
Reflective Writings

• Feedback in electronic form
• Improves readability and speed
• Provides more space for comments
• Enables questions and answers in the same document

• Noting student grade could be separate

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Practices Related to Reflection

• Regular project and course retrospectives

• Goals
• Create a lasting record of what instructors
  learned
• A balanced, big picture view of course
• Formulate intention for change
• Transfer distilled lessons easily to other
  instructors

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Practices Related to Reflection

• Regular project and course retrospectives
• Team size to promote need for communication

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Practices Related to Reflection

• Regular project and course retrospectives
• Team size to promote need for communication
• Timing reflective activities to capture
  experiences
• Shortly after project milestones works best

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Practices Related to Reflection

• Regular project and course retrospectives
• Team size to promote need for communication
• Timing reflective activities to capture
  experiences
• Shortly after project milestones
• Changing requirements reveals quality of design
• Possibly done as a thought exercise to avoid
  chaos
• E.g., localization
• Explicitly changing hats when switching roles
• Instructors play evaluator, coach, facilitator,
  expert, customer
• Motivating and carefully timing soft topics

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Summary of Results

• Distilled principles and practices to aid
  (software) engineering instruction
• Demonstrated practicality and positive effect in
  a real course over multiple terms
• Enabled steady incremental evolution of courses
• Selectively employed by different instructors in
  several courses

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Acknowledgements

• Prof. Richard Anderson
• My colleagues and students at the University of
  Washington
• HP, Microsoft Research External Research
  Programs, NSF

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Additional Resources

• Effective Feedback Approaches to Support
  Engineering Instruction and Training in Project
  Settings, by Valentin Razmov, PhD thesis, 2007.

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Discussion
Questions?