Trying To Teach Testing Skills and Judgment

[Rikard]

Today, February 12th, I will do a webinar with my EuroSTAR talk about my experiences as a teacher at higher vocational studies programs in Sweden.
I will focus on the different things I do in order to let the students learn the most intangible parts, the skills and judgments involved when we figure out what is important to test, and how to test it.
I look forward to all your questions and comments, and if you post them before the webinar, I might even address them during the talk.

Cheers,
Rikard

View Webinar & Slides Here

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Thanks for the webinar 🙂 I will have a question (next time i see you regarding your number puzzle – i think i almost had it in Test Lab last year 🙂

Regarding debriefing and giving feedback – could you suggest resources on how one should go about them? (this would Help to do a good job on next years TestLab).

not quite a question – but – i know i still struggle quite a bit with explaining the knowledge i have so it feels useful for the person trying to listen to it – I bet there’s no better solution to try it again again and again till this practice bares the fruits, right 🙂

-^. ^=-
~~ ~~

[Rikard]

Hi Guna

I haven’t really researched “debriefing and feedback”, but I remember “honesty” and “ask if they want feedback” from a course many years ago.
I think I do what James Bach called “wisdom-based coaching. That’s where the coach knows the subject matter.”
For specific exercises, I have prepared things I want to highlight. For individual feedback, I focus on the content, and trust I can say useful things about the work they did. It is often useful just to explain what you would have done yourself in the same situation.
Maybe this doesn’t help you, but to quote my paper:
“The feedback from the teacher might be less important than the student’s honest reflection it enables.”

Regarding explaining knowledge so it feels useful, my main “trick” is to realize that the way I explain it doesn’t work. Then I change the way, maybe start from a different angle, and use different words I think matches the person I am talking to.

[Daragh]

Another question that came up during the webinar was:

“Do your courses include hands on exercises like set up an example test automation?”

[Rikard]

Yes, automation have also been in scope.
We have our own test servers where thay are allowed to try out automation, performance and security Tools as much as they want.
A typical automation assignment might be: “Here’s your test object. Create a small, but valuable automated regression suite.”
This will not only include the technical skills to accomplish it, but also requires an understanding of the test object, realizing what testing would make a valuable automated regression suite.

[Author]

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