PBL in Computing Skills course, UCLAN

Course overview

In this module, students work in teams to create, evaluate, market on-line, and present a sophisticated computing-related product through a series of intensively supported exercises and guided discovery.

Participants in piloting 

The course is compulsory for students all students of computing undergraduate courses degrees in computing and is the 1st module they complete in year 1 of their studies. The following groups of students were engaged:

  • 177 students in academic year 2019 – 2020.
  • 242 students in academic year 2020 – 2021.

Timeframe

academic year 2019 – 2020

academic year 2020 – 2021

Use of ALIEN services and tools

The students were placed into groups and worked over 4 weeks to design, develop, and market a mobile treasure hunt application.

Each week they were required to complete a specific task within their groups, for example connect their phone to a server to extract data to be used in the app, investigate, and market the app. At the end of the 4 weeks they produced a marketing stall to showcase their work.