The market for mobile applications has been growing dramatically, as has the complexity of the applications and the speed of the development process. These changes require a rethinking of the development process and of how developers are trained. In order to better prepare faculty and students for the emerging mobile application market, this study presents a new learning and software development framework that combines Agile methodologies with the ChallengeBased Learning (CBL) framework. CBL provides a studentcentered learning framework that mirrors the modern workplace. Agile methodologies address the changing landscape of mobile development environments. A combination of the CBL learning framework and Agile methodologies can better prepare students for the development market. This paper presents an empirical study applying CBL and Scrum in a mobile application development course evaluated through a series of post surveys. The results indicate that a teaching and learning environment based on practical experience combining the CBL framework with the Scrum process is an effective model to promptly teach undergraduates how to be successful mobile application developers.

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The mobile application development market has been dramatically growing in the last few years as the complexity of its applications and speed of software development process. These changes in the mobile development market require a rethinking on the way the software development should be performed by teams. In order to better understand how agile practices support mobile application development, we applied a questionnaire to 20 undergraduate students. These students have been training in an iOS development course combined with agile practices. Our study aims to identify challenges and to report the students experience on the adoption of agile practices to develop mobile applications. Our findings reveal that agile practices help mobile software development mainly in terms of project management and control and development speed. However, aspects of user interface and user experience, different development platforms, and users expectations still point challenges in developing mobile applications.

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Training students on mobile application development inherits the challenges of teaching software engineering where the target computer is a device that has a large number of features accessible by software. Furthermore, the most related experience in teaching students reveals difficulties in developing software engineering competencies. In this paper we present results from an iOS course held in a smart learning environment that adopted the Challenge Based Learning framework as the teaching methodology. Our results indicate that combining an active methodology along with an engaging environment can foster and improve software development learning.