Teaching software engineering virtually during COVID-19 pandemic era: Lessons learned

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has hit the world since December 2019 and it had been serious in Malaysia in middle of March 2020. In Malaysia, the Movement Control Order (MCO) has forced many sectors to cease operation except those in essentials sectors. The pandemic has transformed many sectors including tertiary education dramatically mainly in its digital applications. Although face-to-face teaching and learning has been the bread and butter for most of tertiary higher learning institutions, the pandemic has forced 360-degree change in the way teaching and learning materials to be delivered. This includes the transformation in assessment methods that forced lecturers to find the best alternative in assessing their students. This paper reports the lessons learned in teaching Software Engineering course that has been transformed to 100 percent online teaching and learning (OLTnL) during COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia between March to June 2021. The subjects were second year students of two sections of 44 and 37 respectively who enrolled Software Engineering course as one of the core courses at the selected faculty offering a Bachelor of Computer Science program. The findings reflect that the students who are majoring in Computer Science still face challenges in OLTnL even though they have been in the third semester of virtual lectures since March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Some insights from the lessons learned could be considered if OLTnL continues.