We evolved an innovative way of helping adult learners (average age 40) with little or no experience in IT and employed in a wide range of non-IT areas, explore, and learn software development in a highly collaborative and confidence-building environment. Many of them enrolled in our program with the intention of switching to higher paying jobs in software development and allied industries. With the first cohort of students, we used the traditional way of teaching software development. When we realized that this was not working, we changed our approach. Our novel approach yielded results way beyond our initial expectations. It was a calculated risk that is continuing to produce excellent results. In this paper, we discuss the shortcomings of the traditional approach, details of our approach and document our findings.

Authors: Kathiravelu Ganeshan, Teong Boon Tan, Farhad Mehdipour, Waruni Hewage

Published in: Canada International Conference on Education, 2023

• Date of Conference: 26-28 June, 2023
• DOI: 10.20533/CICE.2023.0054
• Electronic ISBN: 978-1-913572-58-7
• Conference Location: Residence and Conference Centre, Toronto, Canada