Engaging Software Estimation Education Using LEGOs: A Case Study

Software Estimation is an important part of every Software Engineers' skill set.At Stevens Institute of Technology, we have taught Estimation as part of our Software Engineering Masters Program since 2001.Over the past few years, we have evolved our teaching style to be more experiential and engaging. This case study describes an evolving software engineering pedagogical method using LEGOs, which allows students to get hands-on practice and feedback on their estimation skills and techniques, as well as testing some of the commonly held estimation heuristics.The results of the classroom exercises are positive; the students are very involved and the estimation processes and results are consistent with other software engineering estimation heuristics and models.Student experience Wide-band Delphi, custom models using historical data, the “wisdom of the crowds,” estimation model factors (e.g., complexity, motivation, expertise level) and the impact of team size.This teaching technique, since it appears to reinforce software engineering estimation heuristics and models, has the potential to be extended for other software estimation experiential education and experimentation, such as demonstrating the impact of anchoring on estimations.In addition, the students have fun doing these exercises, and become totally engaged in the subject.