Object-Oriented Software Development Education: a Constructivist Framework
Volume 4, Issue 2 (2005), pp. 167–192
Pub. online: 15 October 2005
Type: Article
Published
15 October 2005
15 October 2005
Abstract
The paper argues for the importance of the constructivist learning theory to software development education. Constructivism frames learning less as the product of passive transmission than a process of active construction whereby learners construct their own knowledge based upon prior knowledge and experience. Now that a number of software development courses offer project-based teaching, it seems that the importance of a constructivist perspective has been implicitly well-taken in the current practice. What these approaches explicitly lack is a concrete methodology of how to carry out the constructivist perspective and its consequences for learning. This paper reports on a constructivist approach to object-oriented software development at the undergraduate level. It explores methodological aspects of the approach and discusses the results from its evaluation.