Software Engineering Instruction and Education Theory: A Dialogue
	Vic and Pat Basili

Some Software Engineering instructors have incorporated projects that either simulate product development for a corporate customer or have students work directly with corporate sponsors to solve a problem or produce an artifact.  The rationale for the activity is to provide “real world” experience, a foretaste of what a professional in the field will be asked to do.  

Other instructors may forgo the project as taking too much time from an already full curriculum or due to the difficulty of making and maintaining corporate connections. They rely on the lecture format to convey the material.  Are there other reasons for including “project-type” activities in Software Engineering instruction over and above the practical experience they provide? Are there reasons to try to incorporate strategies other than lecture into courses?  

This presentation will review those areas of educational theory that speak to practical strategies to enhance learning and remembering. Constructivism as a way to view the learning process will be highlighted. Vygotsky’s social interaction theory, and scaffolding will be tied to group endeavors. Bloom’s hierarchy of the cognitive domain will be viewed in terms of writing course learning outcomes.  Also discussed is the importance of the congruence of learning outcomes and modes of assessment to insure  learning has occurred and to provide assurances to the Higher Education community that we are doing what we claim to do. 

Dr. Patricia A. Basili is Chair of the Department of Education at Prince George’s Community College in Largo, Maryland. Her interests include bringing teacher education programs to community colleges and developing alternative routes to teaching for career changers.   She was a lead developer of the Associate of Arts of Teaching degree which provides the first two years of teacher preparation and includes transferable pre-professional courses. The A.A.T. allows students to transfer to any public or private college in Maryland to complete the Bachelor’s.  It was the first such degree in the United States. She also is interested in student-centered classroom strategies to enhance learning.  Basili earned her Bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Saint Joseph’s College. Brooklyn, New York;  a Master’s of Education from the University of Texas at Austin, and the Ph.D. in Science Education from the University of Maryland, College Park. She is the winner of a Regional Catalyst award from the Chemical Manufacturers’ Association, the Outstanding Science Educator award from the Maryland State Teachers’ Association, the Leadership Award from the Chairs’ Academy, and the President’s Medal from Prince George’s  Community College.   

Dr. Victor R. Basili is Professor of Computer Science at the University of Maryland. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Texas and honorary degrees from the Universities of Sannio (Italy) and Kaiserslautern (Germany). He was Executive Director of the Fraunhofer Center - Maryland and a founder and principal of the Software Engineering Laboratory (SEL) at NASA/GSFC. He works on measuring, evaluating, and improving the software development process and product via mechanisms for observing and evolving knowledge through empirical research, e.g., the Goal/Question /Metric Approach, The Quality Improvement Paradigm, the Experience Factory. He is a recipient several awards including a NASA Group Achievement Award, a NASA/GSFC Productivity Improvement and Quality Enhancement Award, the 1997 Award for Outstanding Achievement in Mathematics and Computer Science by the Washington Academy of Sciences, the 2000 Outstanding Research Award from ACM SIGSOFT and the 2003 Harlan Mills Award from the IEEE Computer Society.  Dr. Basili has authored over 200 papers, served as Editor-in-Chief of several journals (IEEE TSE, Journal of Empirical Software Engineering) and program chair and general chair of several conferences (ICSE). He is an IEEE and ACM Fellow.