The Teacher: "Concepts!" The Student: "Tools!" --- On the Number and Importance of Concepts, Methods, and Tools to be Taught in Software Engineering Education

The paper discusses the number and importance of concepts, methods, and tools that should be taught in software engineering education. It is shown that emphasis is quite different from a teacher's and from a student's viewpoint. As a synthesis of both viewpoints, I propose an approach that separates concepts and methods from tools in the curriculum and treats both with proper emphasis. The software engineering curriculum of the Department of Computer Science of the University of Zurich which follows these ideas is sketched. 1. Introduction When looking at the preferences for concepts, methods, and tools in software engineering, one finds considerable differences between the viewpoints of teachers and students. Most teachers lay emphasis on concepts and methods due to their generality and scientific importance. Students typically prefer tools because they are practical and provide hands-on benefit. In this paper, I use the terms concept, method, and tool as follows. A concept is a basi..