Engaging students in the context of software project management teaching

Clickers or classroom response systems have been used in several educational contexts with general positive effects. These systems are aimed to increase active engagement in the audience. In this paper, authors present an initiative to improve engagement but also to give students the opportunity to select which aspects in the syllabus that need clarification or further development in the scope of a software project management course. In this paper, four kinds of feedback are collected namely, background information for the class, discussion on specific aspects of the course topics, weekly focus poll, and additional questions from the audience. Results show the importance of the approach adopted in the course compared with traditional lessons, the focus of students on the expected outcomes of their work, and the importance of clickers to gather information that is not normally revealed to instructors.