Interactive Exercises To Support Effective Learning of UML Structural Modeling

UML structural models involve understanding the semantic relationships of a visual language - specifically the relationships among class and instance diagrams, as well as the abstractions in relating these diagrams to the problem/design being modeled. The project presented in this paper focuses on student learning exercises wherein the students had the ability to navigate and "replay" a portion of a complex model that visually highlights the semantic meaning of various model features. The exercise was interactive, non-scripted, and problem-based, and allowed students to explore the semantics of applied UML and reflect on "mistakes" or extensions to the model. The significance of these findings indicate that non-scripted interactive learning exercises modeling complex visual semantics appears to have a positive impact with students least likely to succeed with the material