Leveraging a Software Analysis and Design Course to Train Ph.D. Students in Teaching

Abstract

Software analysis and design courses present a unique teaching challenge, as they best benefit from professional experience to identify the nuances and subtleties of developing software models. It is not sufficient to teach these courses through just pure lecture. Mastery of the techniques being taught requires constant practice and focused feedback. It can be inadequate to rely on just school training to find skilled software engineers because to design and implement good software takes real world experience. Therefore, it is of utmost importance that recent graduates of Ph.D. programs in software engineering are trained to be capable of mastering the skills needed to teach such courses. Co-teaching is the collaboration of multiple teachers to deliver material to students. Co-teaching has many advantages not only for students but also for the teaching assistant. The shared responsibility of instruction and management of courses gives guidance to graduate teaching assistants on how to translate learning outcome to course administration. This also gives the teaching assistant the opportunity to gain shared expertise from the faculty member. This co-teaching experience also has the benefits of peer teaching for the graduate student such as improved confidence, comfort, and openness. Experience with how to handle teaching challenges such as classroom disruptions and assisting students who are struggling to understand the course content. In addition to this, it also broadens the teachings assistants' domain knowledge by gaining the experience from the paired faculty member of how to identify and convey experience to students. This paper presents the benefits of implementing a co-teaching approach for Ph.D. software engineering students pursuing faculty careers. The work presents the methods, lessons learned, and results of a Ph.D. student's co-teaching experience of a software analysis and modeling course with a faculty member.