Applying CSCL principles to practice-based teaching in software engineering

Abstract

Students of software engineering are facing with the problem of lacking enough practices. Joining a real project and developing software in a team can always bring them valuable experiences and lessons. To help students obtain software development capabilities, this paper introduces a teaching model based on computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) theory, as well as specific teaching methods. A teaching research undertaken in a university uses this model and the result indicates that students could acquire much more knowledge and experiences about software engineering from this kind of collaborative learning.