Transforming Student Learning through Industry - Driven Software Development Projects

Preparing students well for the Information Communication Technology (ICT) industry is challenging as the needs of the industry constantly evolve. As society becomes more receptive to technological solutions, their appetite for more complex and impactful solutions increases too. To cope with this changing demand and better prepare students entering the workforce, we propose a blended learning method with real-life medium-level complexity industry projects and industry clients in a Software Engineering specialization course that emphasizes applied learning with authentic assessment. The interaction with real-life industry clients with real problem statements exposes students to the uncertainty of software requirement gatherings and the design process of medium-level complex software engineering projects. This paper reports on the experience of these proposed approaches and students' self-perceived responses to the implementation. Our study results show significant improvement in students' self-perceived rating for preparedness for real-world industry problems after completing the project and an increase in the rating for most lifelong learning skills.