Authors:
Miguel Alfonso Feijóo-García
1
;
Helio Henry Ramírez-Arévalo
1
and
Pedro Guillermo Feijóo-García
2
;
1
Affiliations:
1
Program of Systems Engineering, Universidad El Bosque, Bogotá, Colombia
;
2
Department of CISE, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, U.S.A.
Keyword(s):
Collaborative Learning, Peer-instruction, Software Engineering Education, Inter-curricular.
Abstract:
Software Engineering (SE) is the discipline that integrates theory, methods, and tools to promote the development of new informatic solutions for multiple contexts. The discipline is generally introduced in Computer Science (CS) programs between the sophomore and junior years, adding the human being as an actor who participates in teamwork strategies to optimize time and effort. We report on an inter-curricular collaborative instructional strategy between two subsequent SE core courses—SE1 and SE2, at Universidad El Bosque, Colombia. We evaluated our strategy considering students’ performance and perceptions, basing our analysis on their grades, Likert scale (1-5) responses, and the sentiment of their open-ended feedback— we calculated it with Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques. Our findings suggest that an inter-curricular strategy like the one we present can foster students’ performance, engagement, and motivation. Moreover, the strategy supports the promotion of SE skill
s, such as communication and teamwork.
(More)