Teaching Domain-Specific Language Engineering and Model-Driven Software Development: A Competence-oriented Approach

Teaching and learning domain-specific language (DSL) engineering and model-driven software development (MDSD) concepts are difficult tasks: either it requires a deep understanding of the nature of a domain, students lack it in general or students are exercising only single technical aspects of MDSD, so that they don’t see the whole picture and are lost in the model-driven and tool “jungle”. This paper explains a competence-oriented approach for model-driven software development course design to reduce the above learning difficulties. The main idea is first to define the course competencies students should have in a precise manner and second to choose an “appropriate” didactic method for each required competency. Two didactic examples are presented: Peer Instructions for MDSD fundamentals and a comprehensive MDSD software project for DSL and transformation competencies, in which students need to develop a complete workflow system for examination regulation issues. At the end we discuss the overall experience with this approach and with the current course settings.