The need for teaching realistic software development in project courses has
increased in a global scale. It has always been challenges in cooperating
fast-changing software technologies, development methodologies and teamwork.
Moreover, such project courses need to be designed in the connection to
existing theoretical courses. We performed a large-scale research on student
performance in Software Engineering projects in Norwegian universities. This
paper investigates four aspects of team dynamics, which are team reflection,
leadership, decision making and task assignment in order to improve student
learning. Data was collected from student projects in 4 years at two
universities. We found that some leader's characteristics are perceived
differently for female and male leaders, including the perception of leaders as
skilful workers or visionaries. Leadership is still a challenging aspect to
teach, and assigned leadership is probably not the best way to learn. Students
is are performing well in task review, however, needs support while performing
task assignment. The result also suggests that task management to be done in
more fine-grained levels. It is also important to maintain an open and active
discussion to facilitate effective group decision makings
