Experimenting with Realism in Software Engineering Team Projects: An Experience Report

Over Several years, we observed that our students were sceptical of Software Engineering practices, because we did not convey the experience and demands of production quality software development. Assessment focused on features delivered, rather than imposing responsibility for longer term `technical debt'. Academics acting as 'uncertain' customers were rejected as malevolent and implausible. Student teams composed of novices lacked the benefits of leadership provided by more experienced engineers. To address these shortcomings, real customers were introduced, exposing students to real requirements uncertainty. Flipped classroom teaching was adopted, giving teams one day each week to work on their project in a redesigned laboratory. Software process and quality were emphasised in the course assessment, imposing technical debt. Finally, we introduced a leadership course for senior students, who acted as mentors to the project team students. This paper reports on the experience of these changes, from the perspective of different stakeholders

Digital Dissemination Platform of Transportation Engineering Education Materials Founded in Adoption Research

INE/AUTC 14.0

Electronics and control technology

Until recently, there was no requirement to learn electronics and control technology in the New Zealand school curriculum. Apart from isolated pockets of teaching based on the enthusiasm of individual teachers, there is very little direct learning of electronics in New Zealand primary or secondary schools. The learning of electronics is located in tertiary vocational training programmes. Thus, few school students learn about electronics and few school teachers have experience in teaching it. Lack of experience with electronics (other than using its products) has contributed to a commonly held view of electronics as out of the control and intellectual grasp of the average person; the domain of the engineer, programmer and enthusiast with his or her special aptitude. This need not be true, but teachers' and parents' lack of experience with electronics is in danger of denying young learners access to the mainstream of modern technology

Going on-line on a shoestring: An experiment in concurrent development of requirements and architecture

A number of on-line applications were built for a small university using a micro-sized development team. Four ideas were tested during the project: the Twin Peaks development model, using fully functional prototypes in the requirements elicitation process, some core practices of Extreme Programming, and the use of open-source software in a production environment. Certain project management techniques and their application to a micro-sized development effort were also explored. These ideas and techniques proved effective in developing many significant Internet and networked applications in a short time and at very low cost

Impact of change on Attitudes, Skills and Professional Learning Requirements: Survey of secondary teachers of Craft, Design, Engineering and Graphics

This is an independent report based on a national survey. It forms part of a funded project with Education Scotland. It is designed to capture the attitudes and thoughts of teachers currently involved in the implementation of the new curriculum arrangements and the teaching, learning and assessment inherent in delivery. The purpose of this report is to guide and inform future support, advice and guidance for professional learning and further research enquiry. Critically, it offers an overview of current thoughts, as a snap shot of time, set in the context of the roll out of the senior phase of DET

An investigation into the adoption of CDIO in distance learning

The Conceive, Design, Implement and Operate Initiative (CDIO) uses integrated learning to develop deep learning of the disciplinary knowledge base whilst simultaneously developing personal, interpersonal, product, process and system building skills. This is achieved through active and experiential learning methods that expose students to experiences engineers will encounter in their profession. These are incorporated not only in the design-build-test experiences that form a crucial part of a CDIO programme but also in discipline focused studies. Active and experiential learning methods are, of course, more difficult to incorporate into distance education. This paper investigates these difficulties and the implications in providing a programme that best achieves the goals of the CDIO approach through contemporary distance education methods. First, the key issues of adopting the CDIO approach in conventional oncampus courses are considered with reference to the development of the CDIO engineering programmes at the University of Liverpool. The different models of distance based delivery of engineering programmes provided by the Open University in the UK, and Deakin University and the University of Southern Queensland in Australia are then presented and issues that may present obstacles to the future adoption of the CDIO approach in these programmes are discussed. The effectiveness and suitability of various solutions to foreseen difficulties in delivering CDIO programmes through distance education are then considered. These include the further development, increased use and interinstitutional sharing of technology based facilities such as Internet facilitated access to laboratory facilities and computer aided learning (CAL) laboratory simulations, on campus workshops, and the development of a virtual engineering enterprise