Conceiving Architectural Aspects for Quality Software Education through the Constructivist Perspective

Abstract

This chapter describes the initiative to incorporate the practice of quality software education (QSE) into our undergraduate curriculum concerning the engineering of software. We discuss how the constructivist’s method of problem-based learning (PBL) helps develop this QSE practice in our students’ daily learning. We also expound the idea of an architectural context to building information systems (IS) solutions, supported by the industry’s emerging consensus that architecture provides the kind of thinking and methods we need to develop today’s complex systems. Our QSE approach focuses on designing problems, which require the building of a sensible IS architecture characterized by objects of different services. Our QSE approach is outlined in terms of a state-of-the-practice management philosophy called action learning, modified for educational scenarios, so that our students could learn to acquire their collaborative software engineering and management experience in the practice of architected applications development. To conclude, the criteria used to evaluate the working of our learning scenario and the challenge in combining action learning with PBL in innovating different QSE experiences for our students is discussed.