THE USE OF AGILE METHODOLOGIES IN MODERN EDUCATION

THE USE OF AGILE METHODOLOGIES IN MODERN EDUCATION

Saida Smakova

Undergraduate, International Information Technology University,

Kazakhstan, Almaty

Assem Batyrkhanova

Undergraduate, International Information Technology University,

Kazakhstan, Almaty

ABSTRACT

New and interesting methodologies have been developed to support teaching. Many of them were inspired by approaches developed for agile software development. The purpose of this article is to examine the main flexible methodologies that inspired educational approaches and to describe the opportunities preserved in the educational context.

Keywords: flexible methodologies, Agile methodology, Scrum, education, extreme programming.

Introduction. It is important for a modern graduate not only to know, but also to be able to quickly navigate in a volatile uncertain situation, independently find the necessary information, analyze it, set tasks and evaluate the results of their implementation, master new technologies, be a leader when performing some tasks and a performer when performing others, be able to work in a team. And a good tool for ensuring effective teamwork of students can be the modern educational methodology of Education Scrum (EduScrum).

The unit of time in the traditional educational process is the semester. Most often, educators and students learn about the results of their studies at the end of the semester, when it is too late to change anything and there is no time left for a full understanding and mastering of the discipline material.

The introduction of Agile sprints allows you to greatly shorten the feedback cycle, facilitating adaptation and allowing you to quickly respond to any changes. If each cycle is completed at the end of the month – it will give an opportunity to evaluate the knowledge and experience gained, to understand what can be changed and improved.

Agile methodology pays less attention to fixed and well-detailed plans and is based on an empirical theory of process management, which assumes that significant knowledge comes from what we learn by experience. Since agile methodologies have proven to be very useful in managing software development teams and projects, the intuition of many researchers was to adapt them to the educational context [4]. Flexible methodologies were first introduced as part of software engineering courses, where the educator manages student teams, forcing them to practice in real software projects [2]. Then flexible methodologies were also effective in teaching other subjects, for example, mathematics [5].

The purpose of this analysis is to present flexible concepts and link them to learning. We have identified the following main search goals:

- organization of flexible methodologies in relation to their application and identification of the main trends of flexible methodologies for teaching and learning;

- understanding whether flexible methodologies for education have gone beyond the field of software engineering education to be used for teaching and studying other subjects.

Presentation of the main material of the article.

The use of Agile methodology in education.

Many researchers had the intuition to adapt flexible methodologies to the educational environment [4]. Stewart and others presented the first literature review aimed at showing how agile methodologies have been applied to education [17].

Firstly, in the Agile methodology, lectures are almost not used, students actively participate in the learning process through activities and group components aimed at strengthening concepts and providing opportunities for research. As in the case of Agile software, the second value in education gives preference to the production of work projects from the very beginning, without waiting for the end of the project course. Agile implies teamwork and collaboration, putting people and their interaction above processes and tools. In relation to learning – where each student is faced with the task of mastering knowledge - the division into small, well-interacting teams within themselves helps to establish mutual assistance. In parallel with achieving individual goals, students pay attention to the development of their teammates.

The third value allows you to have an environment focused on what students are doing and what pedagogical methods can facilitate learning. Within the framework of flexible learning, students and educators can establish more flexible and collaborative relationships, similar to how developers and clients collaborate according to a flexible approach. Finally, with the fourth value, flexibility is applied so that various training methods can be applied and these methods can be changed if they do not give the expected results. In a flexible methodology, the highest priority for educators is to meet the needs of students who become an active participant in the learning process through the rapid and continuous provision of relevant knowledge. Any change in this direction, even at the end of the training cycle, is always welcome[8].

Students are motivated people who work in an environment based on full trust from educators to do their own work, so the results obtained are the most tangible indicator of student progress. For this reason, meaningful and project-based learning is primarily encouraged by constant attention to technical excellence and the correct design of the work.

The results showed that flexible strategies included in project-based learning facilitate both team regulation and project management. The educator acted as a supervisor, helping students to consistently improve the learning process through the development of projects [11, 12, 16].

Scrum methodology in education.

The educator assumes the role of the product owner who decides what should be studied, supervises, processes and evaluates students. Its main goal is to provide maximum value, both in terms of specific learning outcomes of the discipline and skills such as organization, planning, collaboration and teamwork.

The student team organizes itself and aims to obtain learning outcomes iteratively and gradually. The eduScrum master, chosen by the "product owner" or the educational environment, acts as a leader coach and helps the team work optimally.

Sprints are also displayed in the context of education. These tasks are treated as a time frame of events with maximum duration and are designed to provide critical transparency and validation. Thus, sprints are a set of tasks coherently organized to achieve learning goals, and usually have a duration of 2 months or less. The expected events at eduScrum are:

- planning meetings at the beginning of the sprint to determine team formation, training goals and work planning;

- stand-ups at the beginning of each lesson, lasting 5 minutes to synchronize actions and make plans for the next meeting;

- a review of the past actions of the last sprint to show what the participants learned− - a retrospective to create an improvement plan and prepare for the future sprint. The foreign literature describes the experience where Scrum has been successfully applied [3, 15]. Scrum

It is accepted in the context of the development of academic projects, both undergraduate and graduate. Students are organized into small teams and carry out projects following the rules of Scrum. The educator usually assumes the role of the product owner, and for each team one of the members acts as a Scrum master.

Missiroli presented an example of training in software development for K-12 training using Scrum [13]. They developed an experiment in the master's program by assigning the same software project, but implemented by two teams using different methodologies, i.e. classical waterfall and Scrum. For Scrum, the product owner is a educator. Taking into account the young age and experience of the participants, the authors proposed to find a compromise between two methodologies - planning and structure, as well as creativity and reactivity.

Scrum has been used abroad to teach other subjects [5, 7, 10, 14, 15]. Duval and others have introduced some Scrum-based methods of managing the educational environment in order to attract students to greater responsibility for their studies in the course of discrete mathematics at the university [5]. The students were divided into teams, enjoyed self-management and the development of their learning process. The teams chose training based on lectures, online videos in different ways learning, traditional or interactive reading of online textbooks. Each of them filled out a Kanban board in project management so that the educator could track the team's progress towards self-selected stages. After the independent work, several traditional lectures followed, which seemed to the students more like group discussions. In addition, Grimheden has researched the use of Scrum for teaching mechanics, which is defined as the synergetic integration of electronics, mechanical engineering, management and software development [6]. They have shown that Scrum allows students to deliver results faster, more reliably and with higher quality than other methodologies.

The kanban board is designed to dynamically present a set of tasks and works (information retrieval, writing a technical assignment, functional model, presentation, writing a report, etc.) that a team of students must complete in a given sprint. The kanban board is a chronology of the sprint work. All tasks move through it according to their status: "In the plan", "In the process", "Completed". Kanban board - an overview of all the tasks that need to be completed in order to achieve the learning goal set by the educator (customer) before starting work. In addition, the kanban board also gives an idea about planning. It accurately displays where the team is now, what is done, what is left. Accordingly, the kanban board is also a forecast of whether the team will achieve its goal. The information on the kanban board should be constantly updated to always reflect the actual progress of the team's progress towards achieving the result [1]. The update takes place at least before each Scrum sprint (session). The use of such technology in the classroom allows children to independently find the necessary information, master new technologies, show leadership qualities and improve the ability to work in a team.

The Scrum methodology is used by the author to train undergraduates in the discipline of "System Engineering", mainly with a project-based approach to training, where the end product is software created by small groups. It serves as both a teaching methodology for educators and a subject of study for students. The model allows for the effective provision of expected knowledge, their gradual acquisition, evaluation and effective management of the learning process.

Conclusion. In this article, the world of flexible methodologies is explored with an emphasis on their adaptation to the educational environment. The Agile philosophy and its variations, such as extreme XP programming and Scrum, consisting of values, principles and best practices, are also supported in a group where the people factor is especially important.

The described experience shows that Agile can be effective, especially where active and project-based learning can be applied. Agile can not only be modeled in system engineering courses, but also used to teach other subjects. In addition, flexible tools, such as kanban boards, can be part of the learning process.

The application of flexible methodologies to learning and teaching transforms the transfer of knowledge into knowledge gained as a result of rich cooperation and experience. educators become coaches for students who are independent students. The focus is not on rigid plans, but on the flexibility needed to take into account students' feedback and their various abilities, interests, difficulties and experiences aimed at revealing their hidden strengths. The emphasis is on ensuring the highest value both in terms of specific learning outcomes in the discipline, and in terms of acquired skills such as organization, planning, collaboration and teamwork.

This literature review shows that there is a growing interest in learning, but even more in the application of flexible teaching methods that allow students to work together energetically, purposefully and effectively.

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