IVANA NIŽETIĆFaculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing,

University of Zagreb, Croatia

Long-lasting teaching materials

in spite of changing technology

DAAD workshop, Sept, 07-14 2008, Durres

Preparing new course materials

Bologna process New courses New teaching approach (continuous assessment)

Course “Development of Software Applications” New course – Only small parts of the materials reused

from old courses

Professor: Krešimir Fertalj Assistants: Boris Milašinović, Marija Katić & Ivana

Nižetić 6th semester Academic year 2007/2008: 100 students

Course description 1/2

The aim of the course is to: Prepare students to develop complex interactive

applications, particularly database applications. Provide a knowledge for successful design,

construction and implementation of software systems.

Students will be able to: Formulate the software requirements Develop, implement and maintain quality

software built upon different software architectures.

Development of software applications Development of interactive, layered applications Windows, Web and Pocket PC platform For real users

Methodological approach to software lifecycle UML modelling and program documentation C# programming

Team development Visual Studio Team System development environment Team Foundation Server for source version control

Course description 2/2

Our goals while preparing materials

Choosing an optimal theory to practice ratioPutting emphasis on concepts, not technologyPresenting a software project as a living

matterTeaching general knowledge instead of

educating in narrow-minded way

Choosing an optimal theory to practice ratio

Students have to know general professional terms, but they also have to face the real-life problems by themselves!

Theory : Practice = 2 : 3 (Optimal ratio?)Theory

“Recognizing” general software engineering terms Evaluation: tests on computer, parts of homework

and examsPractice

Developing applications according to user requirements

Evaluation: exams and homework

Putting emphasis on concepts, not technology

Teaching software engineering concepts and programming in parallel

Example: Teaching students only one UML diagram per time, when they really need it

Avoiding to make step-by-step course for programming in particular language

Avoiding to teach specialities of particular framework or language

Trying to be independent to programming language

Using technology as demonstration tool

Presenting a software project as a living matter

Presenting concepts in practiceCovering real-life problems

Show variety of the examples in order to cover different real-life problem

Let students write down and understand user requests User’s uncertainty and unsystematic Changing requests, doubts, …

Organizing code in order to facilitate maintenance

Teaching general knowledge instead of educating in narrow-minded way

Avoiding to teach from a cookbook, leaving a dose of creativity to students Giving students general suggestions and sharing

experience with them, but “force” them to think on their own

Preparing student for real-life Defining tasks leaving creativity to students Changing user requests Facing difficulties while working in teams

Conclusion 1/2

What have we actually done? Let all teams develop the same “big” project during

the semester Organizing the database Setting project requirements and defining priorities Defining team rules Developing application

At the end: the same “user”, the same requirements => different projects!

Conclusion 2/2

What have we actually obtained? Compare to other Bologna courses, we achieve

distribution of points most likely to Gaussian distribution

Feedback from students: “Hard, but very useful course!”

…

Thank you for your attention!Questions?

IVANA NIŽETIĆFER, ZAGREB, CROATIA