Portfolios
Meetings - Participants - Resources - Logistics

Software Engineering Disciplinary Commons

The Software Engineering Disciplinary Commons is a new project funded National Science Foundation having two primary objectives.

• to document and share knowledge about student learning on courses in Software Engineering in four-year institutions within a single geographic region.
• to improve the quality of teaching in Computer Science (CS) by establishing practices for the scholarship of teaching by making it public, peer-reviewed, and amenable for future use and development by other CS educators.

The mechanism for achieving the project goals is via the shared production of course portfolios. This mechanism will be instantiated through a series of monthly seminars involving 8 - 12 Computer Science faculty members at baccalaureate-degree granting universities in the Mid-America / Mid-West region of the United States. Participants will meet once per month over the 2009-10 academic year. At these meetings, participants will learn how to construct a course portfolio, skills of classroom assessment and peer review, and will critically evaluate one another's work-in-progress.

The course portfolio, well known as a method for advancing teaching practice and improving student learning, is a set of documents that "focuses on the unfolding of a single course, from conception to results" (Hutchings, 1998). Course portfolios typically include a course's learning objectives, its contents and structure, a rationale for how this course design meets its objectives, and the course's role in a larger degree program. Importantly, the portfolio also includes evaluations of student work throughout the term, indicating the extent to which students are meeting course objectives and the type and quantity of feedback they are receiving. Each participant in the project will construct a course portfolio for a course that they teach that is on the path for a baccalaureate degree in a Computer Science program.

The power of the portfolio approach is multiplied when there are several examples available for a single disciplinary aspect: the Commons would act as a public and peer-reviewed portfolio repository and archive, charting and calibrating excellence over time. Further, by linking educators between community colleges and universities, a regional network of educators within a single discipline will be strengthened for future collaboration and knowledge-sharing.

Related Work

other Disciplinary Commons

Participation in the Software Engineering Commons involves:

The Software Engineering Commons will meet during the 2009-10 academic year, including:

• An initial meeting, in August 2009, will introduce participants to the portfolio model, to the objectives and structure of the Commons, and to key skills for beginning their portfolio work.
• Participants will then meet every 4-6 weeks throughout the academic year developing their own portfolios and evaluating one another's work-in-progress.
• The final meeting, in May 2010, will provide opportunity for critical reflection, finalizing dissemination plans, and for examining issues from the entire corpus of portfolios.

If accepted, each participant commits to:

1. Attending both initial and capstone full-day workshops,
2. attending all meetings, at 4-6 week interval,
3. completing a course portfolio for your SE course

As well as committing to attending and undertaking your own work, these activities will involve:

• Reading a small number of papers that will help in carrying out the goals of the project, and
• Reading and critiquing portions of other participants' portfolios.

What the Disciplinary Commons isn't:

The Software Engineering Commons seeks to bring faculty with experience in teaching software engineering together for the purposes stated above, and thus is NOT intended to:

• generate a courseware repository
• develop educational materials
• train faculty to teach software engineering

Who should apply to participate:

• have and/or are teaching undergraduate Software Engineering
• can travel to St. Louis area once per month during 2009-10 academic year

Note that The Commons project will pay for all participant travel.

application period is closed application instructions application period is closed

Reasons to participate:

• Professional development: As consistently reported in the research literature, staff creating course portfolios state that the critical reflection involved in portfolio construction results in significant and lasting changes to the course and to their own subsequent teaching.
• Community development: Although a culture of peer review and discourse is common within research communities it is rare among teachers as teaching most often happens in isolation, "behind closed doors". As we document our own work and review each other's, we overcome insularity and secrecy and are able to identify knowledge and best practices, which can be developed and shared as community resources.
• Documentation of practice: In a course portfolio, participants will have a persistent, peer-reviewed, documented deliverable that can be shared with others both inside of, and external to, their home institution.

The cost:

Nothing. There is no cost to participate in the Commons. The Commons project will pay for all participant travel.

Workshop Leadership

The leader for this project and workshop facilitator is Dennis Bouvier, Assistant Professor in Computer Science at the University of Southern Illinois Edwardsville's Computer Science Department. This work is guided by Josh Tenenberg and Sally Fincher from the University of Kent at Canterbury.

Funding

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. DUE- 0817254 and by Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation or Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.

last update: 30 June 2011