R. LAI, N. SANUSI
Trobe University, there are 12 weeks of teaching in one semes-
ter. We use a blended teaching method with the use of Moodle.
The designs of the teaching and learning activities are centred
around Shulman’s first four stages of learning so that we have
confidence that students are learning from stage to stage; and
consequently, they will increase their learning. We name our
method, Constructive Progressive Alignment (CPA). The me an-
ings of “Constructive” and “Alignment” remain the same as in
the CA context. However, in addition to the expected “Align-
ment” activities that a lecturer would put into place when
teaching a subject using the CA method, we use the term “Pro-
gressive Alignment” to mean that a lecturer also needs to in-
clude and design teaching and learning activities that align with
the ways how students learn progressively in order to improve
student learning.
Moodle
La Trobe has been using Moodle as the LMS for teaching
and learning since 2011. Moodle (Modular Object-Oriented
Dynamic Learning Environment) is an Open Source Course
Management System (CMS), also known as a Learning Man-
agement System (LMS) (http://moodle.org). It has become very
popular among educators around the world as a tool for creating
online dynamic web sites for their students. Moodle aims to
give educators good tools to manage and promote learning, but
there are many ways to use it. For instances, it has features that
allow it to scale to very large deployments and hundreds of
thousands of students, yet it can also be used for a primary
school or an education hobbyist. Many institutions use it as
their platform to conduct fully online courses, while some use it
simply to augment face-to-face courses (known as blended
learning). Many users love to use the activity modules (such as
forums, databases and wikis) to build richly collaborative com-
munities of learning around their subject matter (in the social
constructionist tradition), while others prefer to use Moodle as a
way to deliver content to students and assess learning using
assignments or quizzes.
The Subjects Taught
We have applied our method to teaching some software en-
gineering subjects. The subjects are: 1) CSE3MQR (Metrics,
quality and reliability) in 2011; 2) CSE3MQR (Metrics, quality
and reliability) in 2012; and 3) CSE3MQR (Metrics, quality
and reliability, CSE3SDM (System Design and Methodology)
and CSE5CPE (Communication Protocol Engineering) in 2013.
In this paper, we limit our discussions on our experiences in
using the method to teach CSE3MQR in 2011. CSE3MQR is a
subject of the Bachelor of Software Engineering (BSE) course.
BSE is of four year full-time or equivalent part-time duration
and requires the completion of 480 credit points. In the first and
second years, students study a fixed combination of subjects in
computer science and electronics, together with mathematics,
computer systems, physics, and engineering management. A
major industry-relevant project must be completed in third year
and a research project in fourth year. Graduates of the course
are eligibl e for members hip of Engineers Austral ia.
A third year students has to complete the studies of subjects
totaling 120 credit points. CSE3MQR is worth 15 credit points.
This subject examines the different attributes of the quality of a
piece of software and their meanings. The topics covered in-
clude the use of metrics to improve software quality, different
types of metrics, software complexity, size estimation, Goal
Question and Metrics (GQM), software reliability concepts,
reliability model, reliability estimation, testing issues in the real
world, test suite design, testing techniques, management issues
in testing, and software release policies.
In 2011, there were 27 students who enrolled in CSE3MQR.
Teaching consisted of two one-hour lectures and one two-hour
laboratory/tutorial. The assessment consisted of 70% for ex-
amination and 30% for course work which comprised assign-
ments, laboratories, and tutorial.
Implementing the Method
Stage 1: Engagement and Motivation
Learning begins with student engagement, without which
subsequent stages of learning will not succeed well. We wanted
to find out students’ learning preferences so that we could align
our ways of teaching with students’ learning styles. To obtain
such information from the students, we conducted a Moodle
online survey amongst them at the start of the semester. The
survey was entitled “Approach to Studying MQR” and used a
five-point Likert-type scale (with 5 being the most true and 1
being the least true), which indicated the degrees to which the
students agreed with a certain study style or behaviour. It was
aimed at gaining some ideas about what made the students en-
gage in learning and what motivated them to study, based on
their past experiences in learning activities.
The survey consisted of 15 questionnaires; some examples
were: 1) I prefer a personalized approach to learning and want
to have peer learning with my classmates; 2) I am able to do the
best when learning the practical aspects of subject; and 3) I like
a clearly defined schedule and standards so I know what to do
rather than taking independent action. Students indicated their
level of agreement by selecting a number within the range from
one to five, with five meaning the highest level of agreement.
Tables 1 and 2 below summarises the survey results.
The results were then published on Moodle and discussion
were held with the students. As such, the following decisions
were made together with them: 1) all forms of assessments
were to be of e-Assessment tasks and to be submitted via Moo-
dle; 2) regular and smaller e-Assessment tasks based on the
materials taught were to be given; 3) the assessment tasks were
to be of different varieties, e.g., problem solving, essay, re-
searching into commercial/industrial issues; 4) the breakdown
of marks for each of these e-Assessment tasks were agreed and
well understood by the students.
To obtain further feedbacks from them at the start of the se-
mester, we briefly explained the ten topics that we had prepared
for teaching CSE3MQR and conducted a Moodle survey which
enabled them to indicate their levels of interest in each of these
ten topics. Further, the survey also consisted of the following
two questions: 1) I like to have as many topics as possible to be
covered in this course, with the understanding that each of the
topics will not be taught in depth; and 2) I like to have a lesser
number of topics to be covered but at a greater depth. Students
indicate their level of interest/agreement by selecting a number
within the range from one to five, with five meaning the highest
level of interest/agreement. After analysing the survey data, it
was found that the three topics—“Management by metrics”,
“Software Testing” and “Reliability”—received the highest
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