DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT Training and Education This OOPSLA Mid-Year Applied Object Technology Workshop will provide a forum for those involved in OO training and education to discuss their challenges and share their insights. Rather than concentrating only on philosophy and presentation of ideas, this workshop will focus on collaboration and discussion with the goal of producing and documenting concrete ideas to meet the challenges of teaching OO. Those from industry and academia who are involved in object technology training and education are encouraged to attend. Experienced individuals and those new to OO education and training are welcome. The most important qualification is a willingness to discuss problems, share thoughts and ideas and produce results! Workshop Rationale It is common knowledge that there is a shortage of individuals educated in object technology. This is due in part to the fact that object technology education is complicated and must extend beyond material concentrating solely on the technology. While industry struggles with the expense of providing training for their employees, universities attempt to find the best ways to add OO education to their curriculums. The driving force behind this workshop centers on three observations: - The OO training challenges of industry and academia are similar in many cases and different in only a few. - Concrete solutions to the challenges should be documented so that they can be reused. - Industry and academia can be better served by working together to meet the challenges of supplying the current and future need for OO developers. Focus of the Workshop Although this is a three-day event, it is still not possible to give adequate time to every issue in the large and complicated topic of OO education and training. The leaders of this workshop have discovered through experience that the most successful workshops are ones that have a focus and a goal. Therefore, this workshop will focus on addressing three questions with the goal of documenting the answers to these questions. Three of these are stated below while the fourth is open for suggestions by those who are planning to attend. With this strategy in mind, each position statement should address one or more of the following using concrete and very specific ideas and examples. Focus questions: 1) What are the influential challenges in OO training and education? What are some potential solutions to these challenges? 2) What are the environmental differences between industry and academic teaching and learning? (e.g. length of course, maturity and past experience of students, learning styles of students, etc.) What can be shared and learned from each other's experiences in these different environments? 3) How can industry and academia work together to do a more efficient job of meeting the challenges in OO education and training? 4) <> While examining these questions, discoveries and ideas will surface and be discussed. The final task is to produce a useful and reusable document which clearly summarizes the conclusions of the workshop. This will provide attendees with concrete ideas for improving OO training and education. (Remember, the focus is on concrete solutions for real problems.) General (tentative) Schedule (Specific agenda and action items will be structured after position statements are received by the workshop organizers. The schedule is, of course, open for change if the participants wish.) First day: - Introductions - Position paper presentations. (Each individual will give a very short presentation followed by a short q&a period. Exact time limit for each presentation will be determined after the number of attendees is known.) - Focus groups. (Each individual will choose a group addressing one of the four focus questions.) Second day: - Report from the first day focus groups - Second round of focus groups. (Each individual will choose a different group addressing one of the four focus questions.) - Report from second day focus groups Third day: - Discussion of conclusions from the previous two days - Summary of the concrete ideas and preparation of the documentation Position Statements: Individuals interested in participating in this workshop should submit a position statement of (2 to 5 pages) defining experiences with teaching object technology. Each statement must: - address one or more of the focus questions and/or propose a fourth question - include a short statement of the author's background - contain, at the beginning of the statement, the author(s) name, affiliation, and contact information (E-mail and voice phone). Each attendee will be given a short period during the workshop to present his or her statement. A copy of each statement will be made available to all attendees. Deadline for the position papers statements is April 27. (Early submissions are encouraged.) Notifications of acceptance will be distributed by May 15. Submissions should be made in electronic form preferably in ??? format. Please submit to: Susan Burk .... Organizers: Susan Burk ... Mary Lynn Manns is a member of the Computer Science faculty at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. In addition to teaching courses in object technology, she researches issues in OO education and training. She has been involved with organizing various OO education and training workshops at conferences such as OOPSLA, TOOLS, ECOOP, and OT, and is currently the Chair of the OOPSLA'98 Educators Symposium. Donald J. Bagert is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Texas Tech University. His research interests include iconic programming languages and object-oriented design methodologies. He is the editor of the FASE (Forum for Advancing Software engineering Education) electronic newsletter, and has been a member of an advisory committee to the Texas State Board of Professional Engineers, which recently voted unanimously to recognize "the discipline of Software Engineering as having a sufficiently distinct knowledge base to allow licensing for engineers experienced in that knowledge base." Dr. Bagert recently held the workshop "Software Education 2000: Computing at the Crossroads" at the Conference for Software Engineering Education and Training (CSEE&T), which brought together many of the academic, professional, and licensing stakeholders in the computing education community, and is the Program Chair for the 1999 CSEE&T. He is also the Co-Director of the new Software Engineering Research, Training, and Education Center (SERTEC) at Texas Tech. Chang-Hyun Jo ..??