I ran a session for school kids once. They were 13 to 14 years old. I did the following:
I asked them to all take out their phones – which was a surprise and joy for them
I asked them to just use their favourite app for 5 minutes – they actually couldn’t believe it!
I then described the concept of risks and things that might go wrong that threaten value – I kept it light-hearted and gave examples of feeling frustrated when things don’t work the way you want them to
I then asked them to explore their favourite app again yet this time with a mindset of finding things that annoy them about the app – and I asked them to take some notes
I then asked them to share some of what they discovered, just by putting their hand up and sharing out loud
It went ok. Some of them got it. And others were just a bit confused by it all. Still, it was fun and maybe it had an impact on at least one teenager.
If I were to run it again I’d also invite “capture things that you like about the app” as well as things that annoy you.
I did a much shorter session at a school but the things I covered, using items from The Coders Guild Software Testing Bootcamp were;
What software testing is, risk mitigation, emulating users, ensuring people with different needs were able to use it etc.
Used an input form to get the to think about testing then pointed out the things they didn’t notice. (Log in and login, mixed capitalisation, low contrast, multiple fonts, login or sign in, button lable, sign me in? (p.s. this is a real life login form!)
Went through the Mary Had a Little Lamb exercise of what does it actually mean. The children were shocked when we reached, Mary could be a sheep.
Difference between a check (binary outcome) and a test
Different mindsets of developers (creators) and testers (critics) using this image
Got them to think about big software bug impacts. Facebook and Whatsapp down, Bank apps not available, security breaches
Good luck with it all
Students lose interests very quickly and especially when it’s pure theory.
Are they IT students btw?
What I notice most here in Belgium is that, they get a bit of Selenium and it’s ugly since most of the time the teachers don’t like testing themselves.
What you could do is provide them with testing challenges, provide them an application and let them search for X type of bugs.
It was a while back when I went through a course on Agile, but the jist of it the exercise was to build a resort made out of lego.
there were some random requirements for each team and the lecturer acted as the owner
There were two main phases:
phase 1 a full 30 minute run, with no roles assigned
Phase 2 three 10 minute runs, with a manager, assigned builders etc and with 3 minute sprint reviews at the end of each 10 minutes.
It was a good demonstration of how regular feedback and reflection helps with projects.
Watch science communicators for tips. Testing is science.
I’d include some experiential elements, in order for it to be engaging:
Do an induction logic game akin to Zendo, Elusis Express, or one of your own making.
A game of communication, like Concept, or a version of it that fits your needs.
Do a simple magic trick, or something else that challenges assumptions, like a hidden-meaning question like “I have a phone, what happens when I push the smallest button?” - depends on if its mobile, landline, rotary, hands free, etc; depends on if its charged, if it’s on or off, etc etc. You can invent a better question.
Know what you’re trying to teach and be ready to answer probing questions.
Not quite on the same scale as you are talking about here but I did a class talk to my daughters Primary 5 class about my career in Software Testing. It was good fun, getting them to think about different types of bugs that computer system might have. One little lad was very keen at the thought of testing: His eyes lit up “So wait… I actually get to break stuff on purpose and I won’t get into trouble… that’s cool!”
We finished off the session with how software is developed and got them to play the Agile coin game. Things like that are good for little post lunch warm up sessions or ice breakers.
So this exercise is to examine each word individually and work out what the sentence could mean.
Who is Mary. We start with the assumption she is the little girl from the nursery rhyme but what if she isn’t? What if she isn’t human? Then the sentence becomes a sheep gave birth.
You can go through and come up with dozens of things it could mean.
Hope that helps?
