Active Learning Activities in a Pandemic Context for a Software

Engineering Course: An Experience Report

Isabel Soﬁa Brito

1,2 a

and Jo

ao Paulo Barros

1,2 b

Polytechnic Institute of Beja, R. Pedro Soares, Beja, Portugal

Centre of Technology and Systems - UNINOVA, Caparica, Portugal

Keywords:

Active Learning, Soft Skills, Remote Classes, Study, Face-To-Face Classes.

Abstract:

This paper reports the students’ perceptions regarding active learning (AL) activities in a pandemic context

and the use of AL and related tools to improve soft skills, such as critical thinking and teamwork. This work

describes the active learning activities applied in a pandemic context for a Software Engineering course and

presents students’ survey results. Based on students’ opinions, we conclude that AL and the associated tools,

while promoting soft skills, also promoted motivation and student engagement for face-to-face and remote

classes in the pandemic context by minimizing the negative impact it may have caused on the students.

1 INTRODUCTION

There is an evidence-based widespread belief that the

majority of problems associated with software de-

velopment are not due to technological aspects but

related to people and social and cognitive elements

(e.g., (Lister and DeMarco, 1987; Hazzan et al., 2020;

Sonmez, 2015; Matturro et al., 2019; Oguz and Oguz,

2019; Sedelmaier and Landes, 2014)). As testiﬁed

by Chamorro-Premuzic et al. (Chamorro-Premuzic

et al., 2010), at least since 1998, there has been an

emphasis on the importance of non-academic compe-

tencies usually referred to as ”soft skills”. The impor-

tance of soft skills is often present when discussing

the gap between software engineering and software

engineering education (e.g., Oguz (Oguz and Oguz,

2019)). As stated in the ACM and IEEE report (ACM

and IEEE Computer Society, 2020, p. 29) ”All com-

puting disciplines emphasize required know-how of

individual practitioners, including problem solving,

critical thinking, communication, and teamwork.”

The report also describes thirteen elements of foun-

dational and professional knowledge; some of them

are soft skills, such as Analytical and Critical Think-

ing, Collaboration and Teamwork, Oral Communica-

tion and Presentation, Time Management, among oth-

ers. In addition, the same report (ACM and IEEE

Computer Society, 2020, p. 42) quotes a recent sur-

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7556-4367

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0097-9883

vey by PSI Services stating that ”81% of employers

in industry indicated that prospective employees lack

critical thinking and analytical reasoning skills and,

75% think graduates lack adequate innovation and di-

versity skills”.

Active learning provides opportunities for stu-

dents to think about the technical content through

a range of activities that help them critically under-

stand the challenges of the industry context (Hmelo-

Silver, 2004). Moreover, active learning activities

”(. . . ) help promote higher order thinking skills, such

as application of knowledge, analysis and synthe-

sis”

. Thus, active learning activities engage students

in deep rather than surface learning, improving stu-

dent’s overall learning. Yet, this is a particularly dif-

ﬁcult challenge in a pandemic context, where the stu-

dents and teachers need to maintain social distance.

This paper describes the students’ perceptions regard-

ing active learning (AL) activities in one remote and

onsite/face-to-face Software Engineering course dur-

ing the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper focuses on

using AL to develop students’ soft skills and foster

students’ engagement in learning, mainly in remote

(online) classes. This paper is structured as follows.

Section 2 describes the set of applied AL activities

and tools. Section 3 describes the course and presents

the used method based on quantitative analysis of a

survey. Section 4 shows the results and discusses the

https://www.queensu.ca/teachingandlearning/modules/

active/04 what is active learning.html

654

Brito, I. and Barros, J.

Active Learning Activities in a Pandemic Context for a Software Engineering Course: An Experience Report.

DOI: 10.5220/0011108500003182

In Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU 2022) - Volume 2, pages 654-661

ISBN: 978-989-758-562-3; ISSN: 2184-5026

ﬁndings based on: i) students’ opinions on the use

of AL and tools to improve their soft skills; ii) stu-

dents’ opinions about face-to-face and remote learn-

ing and iii) students’ opinions about the effectiveness

of the AL tools. Section 5 presents related work, high-

lighting similarities and differences with other exist-

ing works. Finally, Section 6 concludes and suggests

directions for future work.

2 ACTIVE LEARNING (AL)

ACTIVITIES AND TOOLS

In this section, we present the set of ﬁve applied active

learning activities, inspired by other activities pre-

sented elsewhere (Active, nd). They were applied

in a software engineering course, part of the fourth

semester in a six-semester computer science bache-

lor’s degree. The ﬁve activities, and respectively used

tool, were the following:

1. ”Quescussion” / Kahoot;

2. ”Buzz Groups” / Mind Map;

3. ”Post It Parade” and ”Peer Review” / Padlet;

4. ”Exercises”;

5. ”Exercises” / Trello.

”Quescussion” activity promotes discussion

through questions presented to each student. Students

are provided with a question for which they need to

answer individually. This could also be done online

or onsite/face-to-face (in person). Kahoot! tool

(available at https://kahoot.com/) was used to support

”Quescussion”. Kahoo! is a well known game-based

learning platform (app and website), where ”kahoots”

are multiple-choice answers to questions, among

other functionalities. Some literature concludes that

Kahoot! can positively affect learning performance

and bring engagement and immediate feedback to

students promoting classroom dynamics (Plump and

LaRosa, 2017). ”Buzz Groups” activity is proposed

for groups. Each group internally discusses a topic

for a few minutes to generate arguments, answers,

or ideas. To support this activity, ”Mind Map”

was used as a teaching and learning tool to foster

critical thinking. It can be used to brainstorm a

topic and as a tool to promote student engagement

(Zipp, 2011). A mind map involves thinking about a

central topic and identifying new and related ideas

directly or indirectly connected to that main topic.

”Post It Parade” and ”Peer Review” activities are

proposed for individuals, pairs, or small groups.

First, one or more students are provided with a

question for which they need to answer. This could

also be done online/remote or onsite/face-to-face

in a predeﬁned time. Next, the students post the

answer using the Padlet tool (https://padlet.com/)

in pairs, small groups, or individually. Padlet is ”a

real-time collaborative web platform in which users

can upload, organize, and share content to virtual

bulletin boards called *padlets*.” Then, each student

reads another student’s post and provides them with

verbal feedback and a star classiﬁcation (1-5); the

students have a deadline for giving feedback. These

activities promote collaboration and teamwork, oral

communication and presentation, time management,

and motivation.

The ”Exercises” are case studies activities pro-

posed for pairs, where the students are provided with

a real-case project (as an in-class exercise) for which

they need to write a report that illustrates an applica-

tion of theoretical concepts that are part of the course

contents. The exercises were also proposed using

Trello (available at https://trello.com/en) to promote

collaboration and teamwork, oral communication and

presentation, as well as time management. Addi-

tionally, regarding remote classes, Zoom (available

at https://zoom.us/) was used to support synchronous

communication between students and instructors, as

well as between students using simultaneous rooms.

Next, we present how the students’ perspective was

recorded and summarized.

3 METHOD

This paper reports the students’ perspective on

whether active learning activities and tools improve

their soft skills. Additionally, we ask students about

the effectiveness of remote versus face-to-face learn-

ing and the use of active learning tools. These are

used as a measure for students’ motivation and en-

gagement with the contents and learning objectives in

a Software Engineering course (SE). SE is a manda-

tory course in the computer science degree. Regard-

ing the pandemic context, classes were taught face-

to-face and remotely, for 7.5 weeks each, in a total

of 15 classes. The course is composed of theoreti-

cal and practical classes. The active learning activi-

ties and tools were applied to the classes as follows:

”Quescussion” / Kahoot!, ”Buzz Groups” / Mind Map

are used in theoretical classes; ”Post It Parade”, ”Peer

Review” / Padlet are used in theoretical and practical

classes; ”Case study” / Trello are used as part of an

exercise/project training in practical classes. In ad-

dition, Zoom was used to support the theoretical and

practical classes remotely. Except for one case study,

the proposed activities and tools were not used for as-

Active Learning Activities in a Pandemic Context for a Software Engineering Course: An Experience Report

655

sessment and were all-voluntary.

Next, we present the method to obtain the answers

to the following three research questions:

Research Question 1: How have active learning ac-

tivities and tools improved students’ social skills?

Research Question 2: What is the opinion of stu-

dents about face-to-face learning compared to re-

mote learning?

Research Question 3: How do the students perceive

the effectiveness of the active learning tools?

At the end of the course, students were invited to

participate in a survey. We opted for an online sur-

vey to elicit data and applied quantitative analysis.

The survey was performed based on four criteria: (1)

obtain students’ proﬁles; (2) collect students’ opin-

ions about the activity activities/tools effect on the

promotion of soft skills, namely teamwork, conﬂict

management, time management, communication, and

critical thinking; (3) collect students’ opinions about

face-to-face and remote classes; (4) collect students’

opinions about active learning tools. The survey pre-

sented close-ended questions for criteria 2), 3), and

4). We deﬁned different scale questions for each cri-

terion: For criterion 2) the survey scale questions

were either from ”Extremely important” to ”Not im-

portant at all” or from ”Extremely strong contribu-

tion” to ”No contribution”. For criterion 3), the sur-

vey adjectives were from ”Unsafe (regarding health

issues)” to ”Safe (regarding health issues)”; ”Intru-

sive (relating to privacy)” to ”Secure (with regard to

privacy)”; ”Necessary” to ”Unnecessary”; from ”Su-

perﬁcial interaction” to ”Meaningful interaction”; and

”Helps in solving difﬁculties” to ”Hampers in solv-

ing difﬁculties”. For criterion 4) the survey adjectives

were ”Preferred in face-to-face classes” to ”Preferred

in Zoom classes”; ”Useful” to ”Useless”; ”Demoti-

vating” to ”Stimulating”; and ”Friendly” to ”Compli-

cated”. Open-ended questions were also asked, al-

lowing respondents to state their views/suggestions

freely. The survey was disseminated at the end of

the semester using google forms and available at

https://forms.gle/3r33pAmWesfsz8xJ8. The survey

responses for criteria (2), (3), and (4) are presented

in the ”Results” section. Previously, the survey was

applied to a small group of other students to validate

the questions and avoid misunderstanding.

4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

In this section, the survey results are presented. For

easier reading, the results are grouped by Research

Question. Yet, each question has some degree of in-

tersection with the other ones.

To ﬁnd the answer to Research Question 1 (How

have active learning activities and tools improved stu-

dents’ social skills?), we asked students about the

contribution of each activity and the respectively used

tool for the development of four several widely re-

garded soft skills: (1) teamwork and conﬂict man-

agement; (2) time management; (3) oral communi-

cation; (4) critical thinking. Regarding teamwork and

conﬂict management (Fig. 1), the most popular tools

were Zoom for synchronous communication and the

exercises (9 in 16 recognized an ”extremely strong

contribution”). Most students also recognize the use

of ”Post It Parade” and ”Peer Review” / Padlet as a

strong contributor, which is not surprising considering

the ”Post It Parade” activity description (see section

2). Exercises with Trello is the least favored by stu-

dents (3 students classiﬁed it as ”No Contribution”),

but most students still recognize some contribution.

This perception may be because students have difﬁ-

culties working in pairs, and they did not like to see

these difﬁculties reﬂected in the tool.

Figure 1: Active learning activities and tools contributions

to teamwork and conﬂict management.

Regarding Time Management (Fig. 2), students

(10 in 16 recognized an ”extremely strong contribu-

tion”) valued regular exercises as the most beneﬁcial

active learning strategy, probably due to a more ob-

vious and stronger connection to the course contents

and because those exercises were proposed mainly for

pairs and to be developed in a short or long period of

time. Most students acknowledged some contribution

from all activities. Interestingly, even the use of Mind

Map was considered by a small majority as contribut-

ing to better time management. It seems reasonable to

conclude that students see all regular activities along

the semester as aids for better time management.

Unsurprisingly, Zoom was the most favored tool

regarding oral Communication (Fig. 3). More sur-

prising is that Trello was equally valued, and all other

activities and tools were seen as solid contributors to

oral communication. The Mind Map was the least im-

CSEDU 2022 - 14th International Conference on Computer Supported Education

656

Figure 2: Active learning activities and tools contributions

to time management.

portant for oral communication.

Figure 3: Active learning activities and tools contributions

to oral communication.

Still, regarding the tools’ contribution, students

were also asked about the perceived contribution for

critical thinking (Fig. 4). Exercises were the most val-

ued (12 in 16 recognized an ”extremely strong con-

tribution”), followed by Zoom, Kahoot, and Padlet.

Trello was the least valued, but still, 11 in 16 rec-

ognized some level of contribution. Notably, critical

thinking has the lowest number of ”No contribution”

answers compared to the others. Therefore, according

to students’ perception, critical thinking was the most

improved soft skill.

Figure 4: Active learning activities and tools contributions

to critical thinking.

Most students considered that the activities car-

ried out contributed to the development of soft skills,

mainly time management and critical thinking (>10

students). Moreover, students think that the less stim-

ulated skills were oral communication and conﬂict

management. Therefore, either the activities are not

suitable to promote this soft skill, or the proﬁle of

the students can inﬂuence the answers; for example,

the students think they already have this soft skill

or do not like to express their opinions and knowl-

edge aloud. Analyzing ﬁgures 1 to 3, Mind Map

was the least valued activity. Even in the context of

critical thinking, the Mind Map did not have a very

positive contribution compared to other activities. It

seems that the students found the activity very com-

plex, probably because they needed to collect data,

ask questions and analyze possible solutions, which

was time-consuming as several solutions could arise.

One student denoted that Padlet, Mind Map, and

Kahoot have weak contributions for her/his soft skills

development, which seems reasonable considering

that she/he only attended 1-4 classes. It is also worth

mentioning that students regularly attended classes

(>8 classes). Few students attended less than half of

the classes, so it is normal to have answers as ”Do not

know or have no opinion”.

Regarding Research Question 2 (What is the opin-

ion of students about face-to-face learning compared

to remote learning?) students were asked about ﬁve

topics: (1) Safety (based on health issues); (2) Pri-

vacy (related to intrusiveness); (3) Usefulness of both

types of classes (face-to-face and remote); (4) Support

(each type of class helps or hampers); (5) Quality of

the interaction (superﬁcial or meaningful).

Regarding health issues, Figure 5 shows the an-

swer of each of the sixteen students as spheres with a

number between 1 (unsafe) and 7 (safe). Most stu-

dents assume face-to-face classes are safe (ten stu-

dents). Yet, ﬁve students seem unsure, having cho-

sen the medium value of 4. Only one student chose a

value below 4.

Figure 5: Students’ perception regarding safety in face-to-

face classes.

Active Learning Activities in a Pandemic Context for a Software Engineering Course: An Experience Report

657

Only four students seem hesitant regarding pri-

vacy in remote classes, having answered with the

medium value (see Fig. 6). Ten in sixteen students

feel completely secure regarding their privacy during

remote classes, and the remaining two still feel very

at ease.

Figure 6: Students’ perception regarding privacy in remote

classes.

Seven of the sixteen students feel that face-to-

face classes are slightly more necessary than remote

classes. The remaining nine feel that remote and face-

to-face classes are equally necessary (see Fig. 7). In-

terestingly, no student indicated that the classes, re-

mote or face-to-face, are unnecessary.

Figure 7: Students’ perception regarding the usefulness of

face-to-face and remote classes.

As expected, most students (10 in 16) feel remote

classes hamper solving difﬁculties compared to face-

to-face classes (see Fig. 8). Even so, four students

ﬁnd no difference, and one student prefers remote

classes to solve problems. One student did not answer

the question regarding face-to-face, perhaps because

s/he went to few classes and has no opinion.

Regarding the quality of interaction, the results

are very similar: twelve of the sixteen students pre-

fer face-to-face classes, and four ﬁnd no difference

Figure 8: Students’ perception regarding support in face-to-

face and remote classes.

between the two types of classes (see Fig. 9). This

result could be explained by AL tools being suitable

for any context, which is a positive point. Also, one

student did not answer the question regarding face-

to-face, perhaps because s/he went to few classes and

has no opinion.

Figure 9: Students’ perception regarding interaction in face-

to-face and remote classes.

The ﬁgures show that students similarly and pos-

itively enjoyed remote and face-to-face classes, de-

spite the pandemic context. Face-to-face classes have

a slight advantage of being more interactive and nec-

essary, and remote classes have the advantage of mak-

ing them feel safe.

To answer the third research question (How do

the students perceive the effectiveness of the active

learning tools?), we focused on the three tools more

directly related to learning and motivation, leaving

out the Zoom tool and the exercises: (1) Kahoot; (2)

Padlet; (3) Mind map.

All, except one of the sixteen students, value the

use of these three tools (see Fig. 10). All three are

considered extremely or very important by more than

70% of students. Students especially value Kahoot

and the Padlet. This is consistent with the results of

research question 1. Considering the student who did

CSEDU 2022 - 14th International Conference on Computer Supported Education

658

not appreciate the tools, it seems reasonable consider-

ing that she/he only attended 1-4 classes.

Figure 10: Students’ perception about the importance of

tools.

Table 1 details the students’ preferences when us-

ing these tools while comparing their face-to-face vs.

remote classes effectiveness. Kahoot and the Padlet

are perceived as extremely useful (Kahoot with 12

and Padlet with 10) and stimulating (Kahoot with 12

and Padlet with 9). Mind map still get mostly positive

scores, but students ﬁnd them less useful and stimu-

lating.

Considering the colors in the table, it seems that

students have a slight preference for using tools re-

motely, although most indicate that it is indifferent

(11 for Kahoot, 8 for Padlet).

5 RELATED WORK

As attested from a large number of published papers,

it is easy to conclude that there is a perceived de-

ﬁciency in the soft skills level of computer science

students. This can be partially attributed to the rel-

atively high prevalence of students with a diagnosis

of autism spectrum disorder (e.g., (Stuurman et al.,

2019) ). Nevertheless, this seems to be a problem for

most computer science students (e.g., (Hazzan et al.,

2020; Shadbolt, 2016)).

We found no references to similar works that re-

port the use of several active learning activities and as-

sociated tools to promote soft skills and students’ en-

gagement in a pandemic context. Nevertheless, here

we brieﬂy present some more closely related to soft

skills in software engineering courses or computer

science in general.

Hazzan and Har-Shai present an entire course on

computer science and software engineering social and

cognitive soft skills offered by the Department of

Computer Science (CS) at the Technion – Israel Insti-

tute of Technology (Hazzan and Har-Shai, 2013). The

course was motivated by a call from the Israeli hi-tech

industry. The authors state the importance and need to

gradually learn soft skills over a period of time, based

on students’ engagement, active learning, and reﬂec-

tion. In this sense, the work presented here provides

support for that progressive learning approach in the

context of a SE course.

Bastarrica et al. surveyed a ﬁfth-year software en-

gineering capstone course (Bastarrica et al., 2017).

They found that the perceived relative difﬁculty of

soft skills grows along the course compared to that

of the technical challenge, except for the negotiation

with the client whose perception of relative difﬁculty

drops signiﬁcantly. They also found that the per-

ceived relative value of correctly addressing technical

challenges dropped considerably after the course and

found statistically signiﬁcant evidence that the per-

ceived relative relevance changed along the course for

the measured soft skills. Finally, they report that stu-

dents found that planning and teamwork were more

challenging than expected and realized that soft skills

were much more determinant for the project’s suc-

cess. Although in a pandemic context, our students

also perceived the importance of soft skills.

The Shadbolt review recommends improving

computer sciences graduates’ softer and work readi-

ness skills (Shadbolt, 2016). It also notes that some

enterprises require hard technical skills while others

prioritize broader soft skills such as effective com-

munication skills. Mainly motivated by this report,

Beckingham discusses and presents some proposals

to how students can develop soft skills through a va-

riety of work experience opportunities, in-class activ-

ities, and alternative teaching approaches (Becking-

ham, 2018). In addition, the proposals emphasize the

need to align graduate skills with the expectations and

needs of employers. To that end, they recommend

building partnerships with the industry to help to iden-

tify the changing priorities in the required work-ready

skills. They also mention the importance of in-class

activities for the development of soft skills.

Thurner and B

ottcher developed a questionnaire

to capture the lecturers’ expectations on student non-

technical competencies, which they categorize as ”so-

cial”, ”practical and cognitive”, both based on ”self”

competencies (Thurner et al., 2014). Their motiva-

tion was the assumption that non-technical compe-

tencies are the basis for most students’ problems. A

follow-up study by the same authors (Thurner et al.,

2017) identiﬁed a set of competencies as highly es-

sential prerequisites for software engineering educa-

tion, lacking in a vast majority of freshmen students.

These include self-organization, perseverance, will

to follow instructions, ability to reﬂect on their be-

Active Learning Activities in a Pandemic Context for a Software Engineering Course: An Experience Report

659

Table 1: Students’ perceptions regarding active learning tools.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Preferred for face-to-face classes 3 0 0 11 1 0 1

Useless 0 0 0 2 1 1 12

Demotivating 0 0 0 2 1 1 12 Stimulating

Preferred for face-to-face classes 2 0 0 8 1 1 4

Preferred for remote (Zoom) classes

Useless 0 0 0 3 1 2 10

Demotivating 0 0 0 3 1 3 9 Stimulating

Preferred for face-to-face classes 4 0 0 5 2 3 2

Preferred for remote (Zoom) classes

Useless 0 1 1 3 1 4 5

Demotivating 0 0 2 4 2 5 3 Stimulating

Kahoot

Padlet

Mind map

Useful

Preferred for remote (Zoom) classes

Useful

havior, and team orientation. Gonz

alez-Morales et

al. report positive feedback and increased motivation

from computer engineering students after changing a

software engineering coursework: students worked in

teams of 4 or 5 to develop a project for an actual client

(Gonz

alez-Morales et al., 2011). The motivation was

soft skills improvement, but no quantitative or quali-

tative data is presented regarding it. It is also interest-

ing to note that Kubota et al. argue that active learn-

ing suitability depends on the type of subject and con-

clude that basic subjects in information and electron-

ics are not suitable for active learning (Kubota et al.,

2017). Yet, Lehtovuori et al. noted high levels of

motivation and improved learning results in electrical

engineering basic studies (Lehtovuori et al., 2013).

Confronted with students’ low grades and reduc-

ing face-to-face classes attendance rates along the

semester, Garcia-Holgado et al. implemented an ac-

tive learning methodology based on team working in

a software engineering course (Garc

ıa-Holgado et al.,

2018). As a result, they noted a signiﬁcant increase in

the ﬁnal exam grades and a 100% success rate in the

ﬁnal project developed in the groups.

Silva et al. collected the students’ and instructors’

perceptions regarding ﬁve different active learning ac-

tivities applied to the teaching and learning of UML

diagrams in four different courses in two universities

(Silva et al., 2019). As a result, they identiﬁed sev-

eral beneﬁts and difﬁculties that inﬂuence the learn-

ing when using the tried active learning activities and

some challenges reported by the instructors.

6 CONCLUSION

Active learning activities have been gaining promi-

nence in computing courses, and this study shows the

beneﬁts of some of them in a pandemic context. From

the analysis of students’ perceptions, we could ob-

serve that some active activities and tools were more

useful for students (Kahoot, for example). In con-

trast, others were considered more complicated and

not very useful (Mind Map, for example). In addition,

the students think that their soft skills are promoted,

such as critical thinking, despite the pandemic con-

text. Regarding face-to-face and remote classes, the

students agree that the activity learning activities and

tools are helpful, stimulating, and necessary. More-

over, it seems that those activities and tools minimize

the negative impact of remote classes and face-to-face

classes in a pandemic context. Notably, no student in-

dicated that either remote or face-to-face classes are

unnecessary. Yet, unsurprisingly, most students feel

remote classes hinder solving difﬁculties compared

to face-to-face classes and show a slight preference

for the latter, mainly due to the quality of interaction.

All students that attended more than four classes val-

ued the use of Kahoot, Padlet, and Mind Map with a

slight preference for Kahoot and Padlet and for using

all tools remotely. The main limitation of our study

was the relatively small number of students. Based

on our experience with these and previous years’ stu-

dents, we believe this group represents students’ pref-

erences and attitudes. Yet, we do not have enough

data to conclude that the number was sufﬁcient to

achieve saturation. The used tools are not speciﬁc to

software engineering. Hence, we believe the students’

preferences we have identiﬁed are very likely trans-

ferable to other areas, especially to further computer

science courses. Yet, as the study was conducted in

the strict context of a software engineering course, it

does not provide data to support this claim. As future

work, this study will be replicated in other courses to

identify the effectiveness of active learning activities

and tools to promote soft skills. In addition, another

study will be applied to graduate students’ employers

to verify if these students have the desired soft skills.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The authors wish to thank students, teachers, and em-

ployers for their helpful and invaluable collaboration.

CSEDU 2022 - 14th International Conference on Computer Supported Education

660

REFERENCES

ACM and IEEE Computer Society (2020). Com-

puting curricula 2020 cc2020 paradigms for

global computing education. Available at

https://www.acm.org/binaries/content/assets/

education/curricula-recommendations/cc2020.pdf.

Accessed on 2022-02-14.

Active (n.d.). Active learning, examples of ac-

tive learning strategies, in teaching and learn-

ing in higher education. Available at https:

//www.queensu.ca/teachingandlearning/modules/

active/12 exmples of active learning activities.html.

Accessed on 2022-02-14.

Bastarrica, M. C., Perovich, D., and Samary, M. M. (2017).

What can students get from a software engineering

capstone course? In 2017 IEEE/ACM 39th Interna-

tional Conference on Software Engineering: Software

Engineering Education and Training Track (ICSE-

SEET), pages 137–145.

Beckingham, S. (2018). Baseline skills—scaffolding soft

skills development within the curriculum. In Carter,

J., O’Grady, M., and Rosen, C., editors, Higher Edu-

cation Computer Science: A Manual of Practical Ap-

proaches, pages 221–242. Springer International Pub-

lishing, Cham.

Chamorro-Premuzic, T., Arteche, A., Bremner, A. J.,

Greven, C., and Furnham, A. (2010). Soft skills

in higher education: importance and improvement

ratings as a function of individual differences and

academic performance. Educational Psychology,

30(2):221–241.

Garc

ıa-Holgado, A., Garc

ıa-Pe

nalvo, F. J., and Rodr

ıguez-

Conde, M. J. (2018). Pilot experience applying an ac-

tive learning methodology in a software engineering

classroom. In 2018 IEEE Global Engineering Educa-

tion Conference (EDUCON), pages 940–947.

Gonz

alez-Morales, D., Moreno de Antonio, L. M., and

Roda Garc

ıa, J. L. (2011). Teaching “soft” skills in

software engineering. In 2011 IEEE Global Engineer-

ing Education Conference (EDUCON), pages 630–

637.

Hazzan, O. and Har-Shai, G. (2013). Teaching computer

science soft skills as soft concepts. In Proceeding of

the 44th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Sci-

ence Education, SIGCSE ’13, page 59–64, New York,

NY, USA. Association for Computing Machinery.

Hazzan, O., Ragonis, N., and Lapidot, T. (2020). Com-

puter science soft concepts and soft skills. In Guide to

Teaching Computer Science, pages 75–93. Springer.

Hmelo-Silver, C. E. (2004). Problem-based learning: What

and how do students learn? Educational Psychology

Review, 16:235–266.

Kubota, Y., Takahashi, A., Hayakawa, Y., Kashiwaba, Y.,

and Yajima, K. (2017). Analysis of active learn-

ing suitability of subjects in information and electron-

ics. International Journal of Engineering Pedagogy

(iJEP), 7(3):pp. 19–33.

Lehtovuori, A., Honkala, M., Kettunen, H., and Lepp

avirta,

J. (2013). Promoting active learning in electrical en-

gineering basic studies. International Journal of En-

gineering Pedagogy (iJEP), 3(S3):pp. 5–12.

Lister, T. and DeMarco, T. (1987). Peopleware: Productive

projects and teams. Dorset House New York.

Matturro, G., Raschetti, F., and Font

an, C. (2019). A sys-

tematic mapping study on soft skills in software engi-

neering. JUCS - Journal of Universal Computer Sci-

ence, 25(1):16–41.

Oguz, D. and Oguz, K. (2019). Perspectives on the gap

between the software industry and the software engi-

neering education. IEEE Access, 7:117527–117543.

Plump, C. and LaRosa, J. (2017). Using kahoot! in

the classroom to create engagement and active learn-

ing: A game-based technology solution for elearning

novices. Management Teaching Review, 2(2):151–

158.

Sedelmaier, Y. and Landes, D. (2014). Software engineer-

ing body of skills (swebos). In 2014 IEEE Global En-

gineering Education Conference (EDUCON), pages

395–401.

Shadbolt, N. (2016). Shadbolt review of com-

puter sciences degree accreditation and gradu-

ate employability. Available at https://assets.

publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/

system/uploads/attachment

data/ﬁle/518575/ind-

16-5-shadbolt-review-computer-science-graduate-

employability.pdf. Accessed on 2022-02-14.

Silva, W., Steinmacher, I., and Conte, T. (2019). Students’

and instructors’ perceptions of ﬁve different active

learning strategies used to teach software modeling.

IEEE Access, 7:184063–184077.

Sonmez, J. (2015). Soft Skills: The software developer’s life

manual. Manning Publications.

Stuurman, S., Passier, H. J., Geven, F., and Barendsen, E.

(2019). Autism: Implications for inclusive educa-

tion with respect to software engineering. In Proceed-

ings of the 8th Computer Science Education Research

Conference, CSERC ’19, page 15–25, New York, NY,

USA. Association for Computing Machinery.

Thurner, V., B

ottcher, A., and K

amper, A. (2014). Iden-

tifying base competencies as prerequisites for soft-

ware engineering education. In 2014 IEEE Global En-

gineering Education Conference (EDUCON), pages

1069–1076.

Thurner, V., Zehetmeier, D., Hammer, S., and B

ottcher, A.

(2017). Developing a test for assessing incoming stu-

dents’ cognitive competences. International Journal

of Engineering Pedagogy (iJEP), 7(4):pp. 35–50.

Zipp, G. P. (2011). Using mind maps as a teaching

and learning tool to promote student engagement.

Available at https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/

teaching-and-learning/using-mind-maps-as-a-

teaching-and-learning-tool-to-promote-student-

engagement/. Accessed on 2022-02-14.

Active Learning Activities in a Pandemic Context for a Software Engineering Course: An Experience Report

661