A Comprehensive Experiment Approach to Enhancing Computer Engineering Ability

This Research to Practice Full Paper presented a comprehensive experiment approach to enhancing computer engineering ability. This approach integrated Swift programming language, iOS development, UML, software testing, MVC, Cocoa Touch Framework and Design Patterns into a comprehensive experiment, through which students can master the engineering methods to solve complex application problems.In college, traditional computer programming courses focus on the grammar and classical algorithm of programming language. Usually the amount of code is far lower than that of industrial products. Such programming courses can't effectively improve students' ability to solve complex engineering problems. They also can't meet the requirements of industrial development. Students are not satisfied with the results of these courses. There is an intense need for the studies of enhancing student's computer engineering ability.Taking Swift Language Programming course as an example, this paper presented a comprehensive experiment approach to enhancing students' computer engineering ability by developing classic industrial iOS Apps.Flipped classroom pedagogy is conducive to free much time in class. Lecturers can fully communicate with students and help students complete challenging tasks. The comprehensive experiment consists of pre-class activities and in-class activities. Before class, the lecturer provides experiment materials online including theoretical handouts of Design Patterns, manuals of UML 2.0 specifications and Cocoa Touch reference manual, etc. Students learn the materials by themselves, practice and discuss online and complete the corresponding pre-class tests. In class, the lecturer analyzes in detail the problems students encounter after class and guides them to solve these problems. The lecturer also participates in each group discussion to ensure the smooth progress of students' project.The implementation of comprehensive experiment is divided into four sub tasks. These tasks are app function analysis, App detailed design, programming implementation, and App release and launch. First, according to the requirements of the App, the function is analyzed in detail and defined with UML. Second, based on functional analysis, the App's system architecture, data structure, view combination, logic execution process and core algorithms are designed. The system is defined in detail with UML Class diagram. Third, according to the detailed design of the App, user interface is built by Xcode storyboard, and the model layer, view layer and control layer are implemented in Swift. Then unit test and system test are conducted on the App and bugs are repaired. Finally, App launch is completed including App internationalization, developer certificate applying, creating description file, setting product identification and deployment information, and submitting App online.To assess the effect of this comprehensive experiment approach, three-year teaching data were analyzed using statistical methods. The results show that students' engineering ability (measured by code scale) and student satisfaction (measured by questionnaires) were significantly improved.Our contribution is to propose a detailed comprehensive experiment approach to enhancing computer engineering ability. The analysis of teaching data show that it is helpful to improve students' computer engineering ability and course satisfaction.