Experiences teaching software engineering for the first time

  • Authors:

  • K. Todd Stevens

  • Affiliations:

  • Department of Computer & Information Science, University of Mississippi, University, MS

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 6th annual conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education
  • Year:
  • 2001

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Abstract

This paper presents an approach to teaching a Software Engineering course, as well as significant feedback from the students who were enrolled in the first offering of the course using this approach. The course provided students with conceptual material as well as experience with a large project. Just teaching concepts or major topics, while important, is not sufficient; students need hands-on exposure to doing a large project in order to comprehend the complexity of building real systems. On the other hand a course cannot "teach" only a project because students need a conceptual framework, approaches, and techniques upon which to base the complexities of software engineering. The feedback from the students who took the first offering of the course provides useful information to anyone who teaches Software Engineering, in addition to instructors preparing to teach the subject for the first time.