Work in progress — Inter-disciplinary collaboration for a meaningful experience in a software development course

Abstract

This paper addresses two main problems in two different domains by integrating them into one interdisciplinary project. Software engineering graduates lack the necessary skills and experience required by employers to address real-world problems. Students enrolled in organic chemistry course often struggle with the content due to its visual nature and its requirement for several learning skills (visual, logical, mechanical). To address these two seemingly non-related educational issues, the investigators in this project have devised a “business” relationship between the students in an upper-level software engineering course and the students in an organic chemistry course. The software engineering students have been “hired” to design and develop a mobile application to help tutor and teach the organic chemistry concept of “functional groups” by involving multiple avenues of learning. By enabling this business relationship we attempt to provide the software engineering students with authentic experiences involved in developing software and to provide organic chemistry students with a tool that helps them learn fundamental concepts in organic chemistry.