Lego-based Case Studies for Teaching Software Engineering Concepts throughout the Curriculum (Abstract Only)

Abstract

Lego Serious Play (LSP) is an experiential and highly creative process designed to facilitate strategic planning, team building, and problem solving using Lego bricks. In the LSP methodology, team members use their intelligence both as individuals and as a group to build simple models representing various concepts in response to a question posed by the faculty facilitator. Discussing the models helps students communicate valuable aspects of their own understanding and interpretation of the problem at hand, explore the team dynamics, and reduce the complexity of many projects. This workshop is intended for faculty interested in teaching undergraduate and graduate software engineering and related courses. This workshop will also benefit all other faculty (including high school teachers) looking for ways to supplement their course material with engaging and playful hands-on activities aimed to strengthen the teamwork, oral communication, problem solving, and design skills of students. LSP-based hands-on activities discussed during the workshop focus on a single software engineering topic including requirements engineering, architectural design, software testing, software dependability, project planning and management, design patterns, etc.Workshop participants will learn the basic principles of LSP and participate in two hands-on activities illustrating how LSP can be used to teach software engineering concepts in an engaging context. Participants will receive the necessary Lego kits, which they can keep after the workshop. Laptop is not required for this workshop.This work is supported in part by a 2015 ACM SIGCSE Special Project grant. More information at http://www.cs.ccsu.edu/~stan/sigcse2016/.