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The benefits of working in a research group are clear: students develop domain expertise, gain an understanding and appreciation of the research process and its practice, and acquire team, communication, problem‐solving, and higher‐level thinking skills. Students with this experience are better equipped to make informed judgements about technical matters and to communicate and work in teams to solve complex problems. Clearly, this type of research experience must be made available to a broader population. This paper discusses how the Systems and Software Engineering Affinity Research Group model provides a socialization mechanism and infrastructure that supports the development and management of large research groups that engage undergraduate and graduate students, who have a wide range of skill levels and experiences, in research and projects. This non‐hierarchical model, which is based on the cooperative paradigm, integrates students into small research groups and an encompassing large research group, and uses structured activities to develop their research, technical, communication, and group skills.

In a problem-based learning (PBL) environment, students work in groups on real-life problems and have the opportunity to determine for themselves what they need to learn in the relevant subject area(s). A common feature of problem-based learning is to provide students with a range of resources that assist them in solving the problems. This paper attempts to classify resources according to the educational functions and activities for which they will be used. It also discusses communication patterns, assessment, and evaluation with respect to problem-based learning. Finally, it presents two case studies, one that illustrates a progression of problem development within the PBL environment and one that describes a practical application of PBL, with appropriate use of resources, for a first-year course in Java.

The benejits of working in a research group are clear: students develop domain expertise, gain an understanding and appreciation of the research process and its practice, and acquire team, communication, problem-solving, and higher-level thinking skills. Students with this experience are better equipped .to make informed judgements about technical matters and to communicate and work in teams to solve complex problems. Clearly, this type of research experience must be made available to a broader population. This paper discusses how the Systems and Software Engineering AfSinity Research Group model provides a socialization and infrastructure mechanism that supports the development and management of large research groups that engage undergraduate and graduate students with a wide range of skill levels and experiences in research and projects. This non-hierarchical model integrates students into both a small research group and the encompassing large research group, and uses structured activities to develop their technical!, communication, group, and research skills.