SIGCSE 2027 Affiliated Event

DRAFT - this event has not been approved by SIGCSE yet... stay tuned!

When: Wednesday, February 17, 2027 - 1:00-5:00 PM
Where: SAFE Credit Union Convention Center, Sacramento, California., Meeting Room TBD
For general information about the location and the conference see SIGCSE 2027

AI in Software Project Courses

Are you concerned about the impact of AI on student learning? Do you teach a software project course and need to develop an approach to AI and student work? Have you experimented with ways to help students develop AI skills? Are you monitoring AI developments and what AI means for student learning and your teaching? This half day event will provide an opportunity for instructors to present and share issues, concerns, and approaches and to discuss the challenges of preparing students for a world where AI will be central to professional software project work. The session organizers focus on student participation in humanitarian open source software projects, but we seek participation from any instructor who teaches software project courses that prepare students for professional software practice. We are interested in courses using software projects with most or all of these characteristics:

• The code base has significant size, complexity, and history
• The project has a client
• There is a development process built on mainstream tools, such as a Git-based platform.
• Students work in teams

This event will begin with short presentations on issues, teaching approaches, and experiments by attendees and organizers. Presentations will be supplemented by discussion among attendees of topics selected by attendees (unconference style). The primary goal is to give attendees new ideas and approaches that they can apply in their own classes. Attendees are invited to suggest topics that they would like to discuss and offer short presentations on issues, learning materials or teaching tips that they have encountered or tried in their own courses. Session organization will depend on participants’ suggestions as well as contributions by the organizers.

Information for Attendees

There is no charge for attending this event, but participants should register for the event as part of their registration for the SIGCSE Technical Symposium.

We hope you will consider offering to share your own efforts with incorporating AI into software project courses. The organizers have can provide all the content, but we think the event would be much more interesting if others also contribute. Do you have guidelines for student use of AI on software projects? An in-class activity you use to help students understand how to use AI to help them learn? A tip for separating effective student performance from AI dependence? A tool or process that saves you time assessing students in the AI world? If yes, please volunteer to share something by contacting one of the organizers!

To Register

To register, please sign up for this event when you register for the SIGCSE Technical Symposium

Agenda

The table below is a draft agenda. Details will be completed based on organizer and attendee suggestions and topics people indicate they would like to see addressed.

Time	Activity	Facilitators
	Wednesday February 17, 2027
1:00 PM	Welcome Plan for the afternoon	Greg Hislop
1:15 PM	AI in software project courses Lightning talk presentations Discussion	Grant Braught
2:30 PM	Break and Unconference organization	All
3:15 PM	Unconference sessions Group discussions	Heidi Ellis and Stoney Jackson
4:30 PM	Group report out Questions Discussion	Stoney Jackson and Heidi Ellis
4:50 PM	Teaching Open Source (TOS): Quick Updates
5:00 PM	End