Design sprint in classroom: exploring new active learning tools for project-based learning approach

Abstract

The application of content only through lectures in an expository format may not be sufficient for the teaching of software engineering in this new era. Creating software products that take the user experience (UX) into account as an essential requirement in the software development process is a necessary activity for all information technology (IT) professionals looking to build quality products. Currently, there are few initiatives that address the insertion of innovative techniques in the curriculum of undergraduate IT courses during the training of students. Design sprint (DS) in conjunction with project-based learning (PBL) provides an effective method to achieve the quality of software products when using UX techniques and creativity. One of the key features of PBL is the ability to generate artifacts with your application to solve real and non-trivial problems. This paper presents a systematic literature review (SLR) to investigate the hypothesis that joining the DS concepts with PBL identifies the user experience as one of the main attributes of quality and authenticity to be achieved in the software development projects. The objective of the SLR is to analyze how the PBL units that produce authentic software are executed. Furthermore, two case studies are reported that explore how DS behaves in a reduced number of classes when it is desired to generate a functional prototype that will be developed in a PBL unit. As a result of the SLR, it has been identified that Scrum is the software development process most used in PBL units that generate authentic software. The identified works report that the students are usually divided into groups of 2–5 people during the activities and the monitors play an important role in the quality of the software produced. The result of the case study indicates that the limited time for PBL conduction was a complicating factor in this adaptation and that students feel that their own learning and participation are positive in DS-based classes, as well as that DS provides insights that may be useful in a PBL context.