BUILDING COMMUNICATION SOFTWARE: A PROJECT-BASED APPROACH FOR TEACHING C plus plus OBJECT-ORIENTED PROGRAMMING

This paper presents a project-based remedial curriculum for teaching the C++ programming language, as well as object-oriented programming (OOP) skills and concepts. The pedagogical approach of the proposed curriculum comprises of a set of homemade projects to assist students in learning essential C++ and OOP skills quickly by accordingly implementing a large-scale communication software system. Based on constructivist learning technology, the proposed project-based curriculum can effectively enhance the learning effectiveness and interests of students via hands-on, minds-on, and learning-by-doing practices related to their lives. Based on the student survey and grade assessment results, the proposed project-based curriculum and practical homemade projects demonstrate effectiveness and feasibility in motivating student to enhance C++ and OOP skills and incorporate these skills for developing practical, large-scale software.