High schools and undergraduate courses present several problems regarding teaching programming. In this perspective, several factors have led to the development of tools to support programming disciplines, including: (i) the persistent problems in teaching programming worldwide, (ii) the inclusion of computational thinking and programming practices in the new Basic Education Curriculum in Brazil, (iii) the need for a lightweight virtual tool that can be freely shared and used, as many available tools charge fees, and (iv) the practical application of knowledge by licentiate degree students in Computer Science, encompassing both learning theories and software development, through the evaluation of the tool. This research aims to develop and evaluate a lightweight web tool through a case study in the context of supporting feedback for programming activities in Brazilian higher education. Additionally, the study investigates whether the feedback is considered the main problem for first-year students in computer courses from the perspective of licentiate computer science students and whether their participation in the case study can improve their skills and abilities in analyzing educational tools. A total of 16 students and three professors from four disciplines participated in the case study, with an online questionnaire as the main instrument for data collection. The analysis was performed considering the collected responses' quantitative and qualitative aspects. We obtained quantitative responses through a Likert scale, while qualitative aspects were analyzed using the Discourse Unveiling Method (UDUM). Positive aspects were identified for both professors and students, providing initial evidence of the tool's potential. Moreover, the study highlighted important feedback from undergraduate Computer Science students, which provides an opportunity to apply their knowledge technically.

This paper presents an investigation of an Experi-ential Learning approach aiming to: (i) provide an experience which bring students closer to practice by means of a real project; and (ii) foster soft skills. Our experience took place in a Software Engineering graduate course, delivered remotely. This work and its results are primarily to be viewed as a feasibility study, although the findings provide interesting results. Active strategies, especially the Experiential Learning, can be a useful approach to provide an experience closer to real-world software industry practices, besides to foster soft skills in the students (particularly Communication, Teamwork, Leadership and Adaptability and Flexibility).

This research presents a catalog of pedagogical practices, theories/methods, and teaching procedures for the elderly. Aging is a natural part of life and is a process of progressive and differential degradation. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the urgency of care for the elderly public. During the lockdown period, this audience’s use of digital technologies grew, especially mobile devices. Despite the increase in the use of these devices, we see that the apps have not been developed considering the particular characteristics of the elderly, since aging can bring challenges and changes related to physical, sensory, perceptual, or cognitive issues. In the context of m-learning apps, it becomes even more urgent to consider pedagogical and accessibility aspects for this audience through specific guidelines for this domain. However, to propose such a guideline, it is necessary to know to define the scope and understand the user’s context. Focusing on this context, we could mention AGE Guidelines - a set of m-learning pedagogical and accessibility guidelines for the elderly. This paper aims to discuss some aspects of the experimental and description phases to develop such guidelines: the establishment of a catalog of pedagogical practices, theories/methods, and teaching procedures. To create this catalog, six interviews with teachers specialized in the education of the elderly were carried out. Based on Bardin’s method, the interviews were recorded and transcribed for later analysis. As a contribution, we expect that the presented catalog will help construct new educational artifacts, including pedagogical practices, theories/methods, and teaching procedures that effectively enable the teaching and learning process of the elderly in practice.

This research-to-practice full paper presents an investigation on how to develop soft skills for project management using PBL in the context of undergraduate degree programs of higher education in computing. Projects are a key way to create value and benefits in organizations and the project manager plays a critical role in the leadership of a project team in order to achieve the project's objectives. In order to fulfill this role, the project manager must have some technical and soft skills. In a related perspective, there are several studies concerned with the comparison between what is covered by Computer Science Education and what are the software industry needs. Such studies point out in which areas graduates most frequently do not meet industry expectations, including technical skills and also soft skills. In this context, among the several approaches that have been proposed and applied to improve Computer Science Education, we highlight Project Based Learning (PBL). Aiming to address the lack of approaches focused on the development of soft skills in technology students, in this paper we discuss the conduction of a case study in Information Systems courses, adopting the PBL approach. In this case study, a real project was developed by the students, and soft skills were evaluated before and after performing the project, in order to verify if the PBL approach had any impact on their development. As a result, it was possible to identify improvements in the development of six out of the seven skills assessed, which indicates a satisfactory result for our study.

In this research full paper we present a set of requirements for an m-learning application for the elderly. Currently, the elderly population has been growing considerably. This fact leads to the country and society adapt and create new opportunities for this audience, since they can present changes and challenges of aging. One of this challenges involves the educational area. Education can take place formally or informally, with face-to-face or distance classes and, in this context, emerges the concept of mobile learning (or m-learning). This modality of learning has generated great expectations for educators and learners, since it has benefits related to the flexibility of learning, especially regarding the adaptation with respect to space and time of use. Based on this potential for flexibility and adaptation, one of the main goals of m-learning is to democratize access to education. Thus, m-learning applications must be adequate and structured to serve the general population, including the elderly. Considering this audience, it is necessary to develop accessible and pedagogically appropriate m-learning applications, since these users may have different skills in comparison with younger students. Elderly people may have their physical, sensory, perception and cognitive abilities compromised due to the aging process and, therefore, m-learning applications must be developed based on these needs. In this paper we present the requirements elicitation process for a m-learning app, focused on elderly users. The requirements were created based on works that involve eliciting requirements for m-learning in general, pedagogical pattern language for this type of domain and pedagogical and accessibility guidelines for m-learning app focused on the elderly. At the very end, such requirements will support the development of a crossword mobile application to the elderly, which should contribute to the learning process of such audience.

This research full paper presents an investigation on how project management education is taught in undergraduate degree programs of higher education in computing. Projects are a key way to create value and benefits in organizations. In today's business environment, organizational leaders need to be able to manage with tighter budgets, shorter timelines, scarcity of resources, and rapidly changing technology. Software project management (SPM) encompasses the knowledge, techniques and tools necessary to manage the development of software products, being one of the most relevant units in the area of software engineering that should be addressed in computing programs. Teaching students effectively any subject is a challenging endeavor by itself. A big issue that may discourage graduate and undergraduate students is the disassociation between theory and practice. Thus, investigating SPM Education is relevant, especially in terms of improving SPM courses. In this paper we investigated the panorama of SPM Education in undergraduate degree programs of higher education in Computing. We surveyed educators who teach or taught software project management to gather information from the academia point of view. In general, the results indicated that SPM is being taught in different contexts in computing undergraduate degree programs. However, despite the efforts expended, there is still a lot to do for graduates to meet industry expectations. There is a need to change paradigms, moving from the traditional approach to teaching approaches that bring students closer to the challenges they will find in the software industry.

This Research Full Paper presents a catalog of pedagogical patterns for learning applications. Patterns and pattern languages are mechanisms to describe best practices and good designs to capture experience in a way that it is possible for others to reuse such experience. Similarly, pedagogical patterns try to capture expert knowledge on the practice of teaching and learning. Actually, issues related to teaching and learning have been increasingly discussed and studied lately, particularly regarding the development and delivery of computational learning applications. In this scenario, the existing learning applications, despite having several benefits and facilities, present problems and challenges that still need to be better investigated. Therefore, pedagogical patterns can be a tool to assist in the design of new teaching and learning applications as well as to the improvement of the existing ones. Motivated by this scenario, we present a catalog of pedagogical patterns established from the results of a systematic mapping conducted in this domain. Such catalog encompasses the patterns available in the literature and can be used as input for the design of learning applications. This study aimed at the identification of studies showing the use of pedagogical patterns as well as the problems solved when using these patterns. The results were extracted from 51 scientific studies, presenting 312 different pedagogical patterns; the set of retrieved patterns provided input to the creation of a pedagogical pattern language.

This Research to Practice Full Paper presents an empirical investigation of a pedagogical pattern language for mobile learning apps. Mobile learning (m-learning) applications can provide several benefits to learners. However, there are still several problems to be further investigated, such as the challenge to keep the learner motivated while using the application during educational activities. The application design can help to solve this kind of problems. There is a need to understand such problems in the pedagogical level and then properly eliciting requirements that would address those problems. Pedagogical patterns try to capture expert knowledge regarding the practice of teaching and learning in a way that it is possible for others to reuse this experience. Therefore, pedagogical patterns can be a tool to assist in the design of new m-learning applications as well as to the improvement of the existing ones. Aiming to bridge this gap, a pedagogical pattern language entitled MLearning-PL has been proposed to guide the requirements elicitation of m-learning applications projects. We conducted an empirical investigation in order to evaluate the proposed pattern language by means of a experimental study, whose main purpose was to evaluate the solutions provided using MLearning-PL in comparison to an ad hoc approach. A feedback questionnaire was also applied to understand the participants' perceptions about MLearning-PL on its clearness and completeness. The obtained results provided preliminary evidences of the applicability, effectiveness and efficiency of MLearning-PL.

This Research Full Paper presents a systematic mapping that aims to characterize the current scenario of mobile application development considering accessibility issues for elderly people. Currently, the use of mobile devices has been growing exponentially, giving way to new ways of relating, working, performing daily tasks and learning. In this context, mobile learning has emerged seeking to democratize access to knowledge for different audiences. To achieve this democratization, it is necessary to develop mobile learning applications considering accessibility issues, in order to reduce barriers that might exist. Due to the increase of the life expectancy, such applications must also be accessible for elderly users. In this context, we conducted a systematic mapping that aims to characterize the current scenario of mobile application development considering accessibility issues for older people. The idea is that the results help us to establish a set of accessibility guidelines to assist in the process of developing and evaluating mobile learning applications for senior users. To achieve the main objective, 32 studies were considered to extract the data. The results obtained are relevant to highlight the current panorama of the area, as well as to present discussions about the need for studies related to the development of accessible mobile applications.

This research full paper presents a study on graduates' knowledge gaps in software testing according to industry needs. Several studies indicate that students graduate from computing programs with a knowledge gap in software testing. In this sense, we aimed to investigate in details this broader testing gap, by considering gaps in the level of testing topics. We conducted a survey with Brazilian practitioners in order to collect data (N=90). For each testing topic, knowledge gaps were calculated as the difference between what respondents' learned/practiced in undergraduate courses and what they actually applied in industry after graduating. Results provide evidence on points that could be improved in software testing education. Firstly, for all testing topics there was a negative gap on practice activities. This means that students could benefit from more testing assignments throughout the curriculum. Regarding gaps in concepts, some testing topics presented negative gaps (such as test in web applications) and others positive (such as test in aspect oriented software and mutation analysis). Therefore, results suggest that it is possible to counterbalance them in order to reduce the existing gaps. We also present respondents' opinions about their experience in software testing education and industry practices.

Software Engineering (SE) is an important topic to be taught in Computer Science courses. However, teaching of theoretical concepts with no link to their practical applications or no examples in the student's context may discourage learning, justifying why teaching and learning are great challenges of education in universities. In attempt to bridge such gap, several approaches have been proposed and applied to improve teaching and learning SE such as project based learning (PBL), a well-known approach already applied to teach SE. Nevertheless, there's a lack of understanding about how to better apply PBL and how to take advantage of this approach, for future use. There is also a lack of experience report describing how to use, its challenges and difficulties, what could be hampering to widely adopt it. We present our experience applying a PBL approach combined with project management to create an environment considering aspects such as dealing with managers and real stakeholders. The goal is to bring students closer to the reality of developing a software project in the business context. Our experience indicates positive results on the adoption of a PBL approach. In general, students were enthusiastic and positive about the use of this approach, the presence of a manager and the importance of using real-world problems with real stakeholders.

Mobile learning has emerged as a new and promising learning modality, providing more interactivity and flexibility to learners, tutors and teachers in carrying out educational activities and practices. However, in spite of the benefits, the existing applications still have several issues and challenges to be addressed, such as the quality evaluation of the resulting mobile learning applications. Aiming to bridge this gap, in our work we have defined a set of requirements for mobile learning applications, by means of a mobile learning catalog proposal, entitled ReqML-Catalog. The current catalog is an evolution of other previous versions with several improvements. It was firstly established from the results of systematic literature reviews previously conducted and also based on the knowledge of domain specialists. In order to improve and evolve the catalog, more domain specialists and already established models were considered aiming to standardize the terms used. In general, users were enthusiastic and positive about the ReqML-Catalog and its importance, indicating positive evidence on its use. The adoption of ReqML-Catalog can assist in the design and evaluation of mobile learning applications, definition of reliable software tests that show the applications' limitations and drawbacks and elaboration of requirements for the applications. Using ReqML-Catalog, it is also possible to compare different mobile learning applications, verifying which catalog items are included in each one.

Patterns and pattern languages are mechanisms to describe best practices and good designs to capture experience in a way that it is possible for others to reuse this experience. Similarly, pedagogical patterns try to capture expert knowledge regarding the practice of teaching and learning. Issues related to teaching and learning have been increasingly discussed and studied, particularly computational learning applications. In this scenario, the existing educational applications, despite having several benefits and facilities, present problems and challenges that need to be better investigated. Therefore, pedagogical patterns can be a tool to assist in the design of new teaching and learning applications as well as to the improvement of the existing ones. This study aims at the identification of studies showing the use of pedagogical patterns as well as the problems solved when using these patterns. To do so, we have conducted a systematic mapping in which 35 scientific studies presenting 109 pedagogical patterns were analyzed. The results are relevant to outline the current landscape of the area and they also highlight discussions that may guide future investigations on the topic.