Expertiza: Students Helping to Write an OOD Text

Students in a masters-level object-oriented design class participated in several exercises related to improving a not-yet-published textbook in object-oriented design. Each student was asked, sometime during the semester, to improve an explanation from the book, to make up an example of a concept described in the book, and to create an exercise for a chapter in the book. Their contributions were peer-reviewed by other members of the class. A strong majority of the students (29 of 49) indicated that they learned a lot from doing the assignments, and 27 of 49 of them agreed or strongly agreed that the assignments were "enjoyable"--a good measure of their engagement. The textbook author found the feedback very helpful in revising the textbook.