Teaching software engineering principles in a project-oriented course setting

Abstract

Typically, our courses include teaching lectures, tutorials/labs, and student evaluation in interim tests and final exams. For courses in which students supposed to learn practical application of software engineering principles, such a teaching model not always yields satisfactory results: Passing an exam does not guarantee that students can transfer absorbed knowledge into their programming practice, or even use it effectively in follow up courses that require students to apply that knowledge in a new context. To counter this problem, educators often include substantial programming projects into their courses. It is authors' opinion that to get better teaching outcomes, It is important to enhance the role of projects in software engineering courses in two aspects. Firstly, lecture material should be tightly integrated and synchronized with the project work. Secondly, course evaluation should be based on evaluation of the project work, with written tests and final exams playing a complementary role. In the paper, authors motivate and explain their methodology to teach a project-oriented course based on a 15-year experience of teaching such courseat the National University of Singapore and Bialystok University of Technology.