My work can help you with your work.
I find that teaching software development and software engineering covers more than I expected when I first started teaching the subject. The deeper I go into the topic the more I keep finding human aspects that impact on how people do the work together. This has changed what I teach people on the subject. The non-technical aspects of software development are as important as the technical ones.
This is what I keep sharing here and in Teaching Team Collaboration. These human aspects impact the work of teams. I feel it’s important to let others know them so they can use them in their teaching too.
To round out software engineering and software development we should teach students about how to work in a team, how to handle difficult conversations, why and how to shorten feedback loops on their work, plus many more. These complete the normal topics on version control, pairing, design patterns, and such.
By sharing them I spare people the trouble of creating exercises on their own, and inspire them to try other ideas. This lets them spend more time with students and crafting other exercises.
Human aspect materials make your teaching more experiential
My materials provide experiences for your students. This makes them more memorable.
My insights provide different perspectives that help you judge your own ideas. I start from caring how your students will do the work together, which is probably different from what you’ve encountered before. These aspects are often ignored, and assumed to be ‘general knowledge’, so aren’t taught. I want to make it so these topics are regularly covered, so people learn good ways to collaborate together.
You can take these ideas and fit them into your teaching. They are ready to use. Some might need materials, but that is all. Everything is set out for you.
These materials provide theory about what the issue, or approach is important in collaborative work. They also provide exercises that can be used in a lecture, or practical session. They provide experiences for students to make the ideas more memorable that a few lecture slides.
Use this in your teaching
Use my materials with your materials. Read and apply my writing in the blog and in the book.
This helps you help your students. Your students collaborate better in software development and software engineering. They will do more work better together. This makes it more exciting for them and for you.
Better team project results, and collaborative software development. Your students will tell interesting stories to people when applying for whatever they do after graduation. These materials help your teaching so that you can help your students.
This post is part of a project pulling together my materials and ideas about Teaching Team Collaboration: the Human-Side of Software Development for software development to students.
If you’d like to be notified of future posts, then please sign up for more using the adjacent form. When you sign up, then I’ll send you a free copy of the collaboration rules as a PDF from the book. You can also follow me on LinkedIn
The ideas above are from my book 101+ Ideas to Improve Team Collaboration, which covers all of these little things that students can do to improve their collaboration.