Teaching Software Engineering Methods with Agile Games

With agile methodology and international collaboration having become industry standards not only in software engineering, how would we enable students in higher education to gather these experiences? One possible approach presents our intensive course on agile software development, applying games in engineering education, within the framework of a one-week pan-European exchange program. First, we briefly introduce the program that’s held twice a year, offering about 60 scientific intensive courses in each session. Topics come from the research fields at the partner institutions and focus on engineering, natural sciences, and mathematics. Roughly 4,000 students from 24 universities in 15 European countries participate in the program annually. Second, we report on the concept and design of our intensive course on agile software development. We apply a flipped classroom setting to acquire the basic knowledge; we use game-based learning for in-class exercises; we foster project-based and collaborative learning for practical implementation. Finally, we outline the project work in our course and share the most inspiring student projects diving into data-driven visualizations and learning analytics. Thus, the participants gain insights into the real-life application of agile project management methods and international collaboration in heterogeneous teams despite the limited course length.