There is no “I” in Team, but there is an “I” in University. Teamwork is a core skill taught in many Computing degrees. How can instructors help students improve their teamwork skills though collaborative projects? Join us on Zoom to discuss a paper investigating teamwork skills in the context of capstone projects published in ITiCSE iticse.acm.org [1]. From the abstract
Team-based capstone courses are integral to many undergraduate and postgraduate degree programs in the computing field. They are designed to help students gain hands-on experience and practice professional skills such as communication, teamwork, and self-reflection as they transition into the real world. Prior research on capstone courses has focused primarily on the experiences of students. The perspectives of instructors who teach capstone courses have not been explored comprehensively. However, an instructor’s experience, motivation, and expectancy can have a significant impact on the quality of a capstone course. In this working group, we used a mixed methods approach to understand the experiences of capstone instructors. Issues such as class size, industry partnerships, managing student conflicts, and factors influencing instructor motivation were examined using a quantitative survey and semi-structured interviews with capstone teaching staff from multiple institutions across different continents. Our findings show that there are more similarities than differences across various capstone course structures. Similarities include team size, team formation methodologies, duration of the capstone course, and project sourcing. Differences in capstone courses include class sizes and institutional support. Some instructors felt that capstone courses require more time and effort than regular lecture-based courses. These instructors cited that the additional time and effort is related to class size and liaising with external stakeholders, including industry partners. Some instructors felt that their contributions were not recognized enough by the leadership at their institutions. Others acknowledged institutional support and the value that the capstone brought to their department. Overall, we found that capstone instructors were highly intrinsically motivated and enjoyed teaching the capstone course. Most of them agree that the course contributes to their professional development. The majority of the instructors reported positive experiences working with external partners and did not report any issues with Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) or disputes about Intellectual Property (IP). In most institutions, students own the IP of their work, and clients understand that. We use the global perspective that this work has given us to provide guidelines for institutions to better support capstone instructors.
We’ll be joined by one of the co-authors Steve Riddle from Newcastle University, who will give us a lightning talk summary to kick-off our discussion. All welcome, details at sigcse.cs.manchester.ac.uk/join-us
References
- Sara Hooshangi, Asma Shakil, Subhasish Dasgupta, Karen C. C. Davis, Mohammed Farghally, KellyAnn Fitzpatrick, Mirela Gutica, Ryan Hardt, Steve Riddle, Mohammed Seyam (2025) Instructors’ Perspectives on Capstone Courses in Computing Fields: A Mixed-Methods Study ITiCSE 2024: 2024 Working Group Reports on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education, DOI:10.1145/3689187.3709608
