Workshop 2: First Year Software Engineering

Abstract

Summary form only given, as follows. We envisage this workshop as a chance for Software Engineering Educators to share their challenges, successes and failures in teaching Software Engineering concepts to First Year (or beginning) students The specifics of the workshop will depend to some extent on the interests of the participants, but as a basis for organisation and discussion we will ask all participants to fill in a questionnaire to be provided in the conference registration kits. We will begin the workshop by sharing the basic results of the questionnaires and then ask participants to share their biggest challenges in teaching Software Engineering to beginners, what they have done that has been successful (and any things they have tried that didn't work), what students have trouble understanding, what topics may not even fit in an introductory course, etc. We will then break the group up into interest groups on particular topics (eg. reuse, programming, professionalism, design, testing, etc.) and those groups will brainstorm about one particular issue. The workshop will end with the groups sharing ideas. Our hope is that this workshop will not only be useful in and of itself but will also provide a springboard for participants to find colleagues with similar interests and enthusiasms.