Static diagrams are the most prevalent artifact used in visualizing component-and-connector architectures and supporting software architecture learning. The use of such artifacts exhibits a fundamental disconnect from the dynamic nature of software systems, deemphasizes the importance of architectural interactions with a focus on static structure, and does not support a high degree of learner engagement. This paper presents our work in addressing these challenges by developing runtime visualization techniques that better support learning through the use of visual vocabularies that leverage insights from computer graphics and human perception. We also present evaluative data drawn from user studies and associated insights, which provide positive indicators that our work is effective in supporting our target learning outcomes.

While design and designing are core elements in computer science and software engineering, conventional curricular structures do not adequately support design learning. Current methods tend to isolate the study of design within specific subject matter and lack a strong emphasis on reflection. This paper reports on insights and lessons learned from a user study in the context of ongoing work on developing an educational intervention that better supports design learning with a particular emphasis on learner-driven reflection. Insights drawn from this study relate to general aspects of design learning, such as the importance of collaborative reflection and the impact of learner perceptions regarding their abilities, as well as to specific improvements to our approach.

Design is a core activity in computer science and software engineering, but conventional curricula do not adequately support design learning since they isolate the explicit study of design to only a few select courses. This paper reports on our initial efforts toward addressing this challenge through an intervention focusing on the modular deployment of design challenges and design stories throughout the curriculum: Design challenges allow learners to work through open-ended problems, which is followed by the creation of a design story narrative through the use of a structured reflection framework. Our intervention strategy is intended to be easily adoptable within existing curricular structures and leverages reflective-learning theories.

While a common expression of experiential learning in software engineering is the industry-sponsored project, it suffers from key shortcomings at the introductory level. These center on the fact that projects are neither drawn from nor relevant to the everyday lives and communities of their student-developers. To address these challenges, we focus on casting project development in terms of service to the student community, with the involvement of our university's ACM Student Chapter. We discuss the pedagogical foundations of our work, present specific course organization issues, expand on a number of specific challenges with our approach, offer concrete project examples, and outline future work and evaluation.

Self-adaptive systems continually evaluate and modify their own behavior to meet changing demands. An important element in the construction of architecture-based self-adaptive software is the specification of adaptation policy: this extended abstract presents an overview of work towards basing such specification on architecture-centric knowledge-based policies. This approach leverages techniques from the artificial intelligence field to explicitly represent adaptation policy at the architectural level, providing for strong decoupling between policy specification and architectural compositions, and supports dynamic runtime policy evolution promoting reuse potential and runtime flexibility.