Commitment as an underlying principle for learning

The prevailing model of software development on which most educational programs are based is in conflict with general practice in industry. As following paper demonstrates Software Engineering education lacks an approach to teach the skills needed to master coalitions of existing recourses that are hard to control. In order to prepare students to handle unpredictable, non-technical and moving targets, an adequate curriculum is needed. Since 1990 software engineering education at Blekinge Institute of Technology has used commitment as the underlying principle for learning. This principle has made it possible to address the discrepancies between education and industry. This paper describes and evaluates our experience of using six elements of commitment in the education of software engineers.