Assessing PBL with Software Factory and Agile Processes: A Case Study to Develop Mobile Software´s Engineers

The increasing and continuous presence of software products and services consumed daily by the society is gaining momentum with the development of the mobile device market. In this scenario, the demand for trained professionals in specific technologies for mobile platforms like Google Android and Samsung BADA, is growing rapidly. The Problem Based Learning method was used to solve practical and real problems inside a Program for teaching Software Engineering techniques to develop Mobile Devices; this program was inspired in the Medical Residency concept, and is called “Software Residency”, in which students learn by doing mobile applications in a real working environment implemented by a software factory. To execute this approach, a teaching and learning method was defined and applied based on authentic environment and authentic assessment, approach that brought relevant results towards the learning effectiveness in this context.