Order Out Of Chaos: A Chart To Help The Design Of Project Based Courses

The project-based software engineering course that we teach uses several different teaching methods to instruct students in a large number of reflective and analytical techniques. These techniques help the students learn how to work in teams and on projects. As we, instructors, were preparing to teach the course for a third time, we had to sort out a confusion in the course design, brought about by the presence of many techniques taught in many ways. We devised a method to organize these techniques by scope (for individuals, teams, projects, systems) on one axis, and by how they were taught (as mini-lectures, homework assignments, project experience, coaching sessions, experiential sessions, etc.) on another axis. This enabled us to see “holes” in our course design that were not obvious before. As a result, we adjusted our priorities accordingly and focused our efforts. This paper shows how we evolved the course structure, discusses how this process helped and surprised us, and speculates about how the structure may be applied to other courses that wish to create a multi-faceted learning environment.