Applying case-based learning for a postgraduate software architecture course

• Main Authors: OUH, Eng Lieh, IRAWAN, Yunghans
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2019
• Subjects: Software architecture; curriculum design; case-based learning; pedagogical approach; Higher Education; Software Engineering
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sis_research/4615; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/sis_research/article/5618/viewcontent/33042213319737.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Software architecture remains a difficult subject for learners to grasp and for educators to teach given its level of abstraction. On the other hand, case-based learning (CBL) is a popular teaching approach used across disciplines especially in business, medicine and law where students work in groups apply their knowledge to solve real-world case studies, or scenarios using their reasoning skills and existing theoretical knowledge. In this paper, we provide how we apply case-based learning to address the challenge in teaching a postgraduate software architecture course. Our learners are postgraduate students taking a master’s program in software engineering. We first describe our design of case-based learning for our software architecture course. We then analyse the survey ratings and learners’ profile to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed case-based design. These data are gathered from 9 class runs over a period of 8 years. Our analysis results show the effectiveness of our case-based design and significant relationships between this effectiveness to the learners’ years of working experiences and the number of learners. Key contributions in this paper are our proposed case-based design for software architecture and the analysis findings.