Team project courses in software engineering allow students to apply their acquired disciplinary knowledge while developing essential skills needed to work in the software industry. This paper examines the challenges and lessons learned by students in two team project courses involving industrial customers. The first course involves small teams and less complex project, whereas the second course, has larger teams and more complex projects. Using thematic analysis, we analyzed 158 reports submitted by two cohorts of students across two successive team project courses. As per our findings most challenges and lessons learned pertain to soft skills, such as teamwork, working in remote and hybrid setting, and collaboration with industrial customers. The results show that challenges and lessons learned evolve as students progress to the second team project course, for example, managing changes and addressing individual skill gaps were more pronounced in the first project course, while students reported greater coordination, communication, and contribution issues in the second team project course. The alignment between the challenges faced and the lessons learned suggests that addressing challenges in teamwork, collaborating with industrial customers, and working in hybrid or remote settings helped students develop effective strategies to mitigate these challenges. This process offers a valuable learning experience for the students, enriching their professional growth.

Peer evaluation is widely used in team project courses in software engineering to assess individual contributions, promote accountability, and improve teamwork. However, current practices in peer evaluation vary significantly in terms of purpose, design, and implementation, which makes it challenging to compare them and establish best practices.This study systematically investigates peer evaluation in software engineering team project courses. In a literature review spanning from 2007 to 2025, we identified 50 articles that discuss the use of peer evaluation in these courses. By iteratively coding the findings and employing a thematic synthesis approach, we developed a taxonomy to characterize peer evaluation practices across four dimensions including their context, participants, mechanisms, and outcomes. Using this taxonomy, we organize the findings from existing literature and characterize how peer evaluation is applied across different courses. Additionally, we interviewed seven SE educators to collect their perspectives on the quality and applicability of the taxonomy. Based on their feedback, we refined the taxonomy and provided a set of guidelines to support educators and researchers in designing and implementing peer evaluation interventions, as well as reporting them in a structured and informed manner.

In Software Engineering (SE) team project courses, students work in teams to develop a software solution for a customer. Besides technical, working in teams in such team project courses involve several non-technical challenges related to teamwork as well (such as unequal contributions, communication and coordination, team conflicts). Peer evaluation (PE) and team contracts (TC) are well known pedagogical interventions in project-based education, including software engineering (SE). We applied these two interventions in two SE team project courses at our university: a small-team project course (5–7 students per team) and a large-team project course (10–12 students per team, typically organized into subteams), to test if they help to address the teamwork challenges. The analysis of students and teachers' reflections shows that they found team contracts as a useful intervention for early team building in both contexts but quickly lost relevance without structured follow-up. Peer evaluation was perceived as more effective in small teams, where students had more visibility into peers’ work, while its value was limited in large teams due to subteam structures and reduced visibility of individual contributions. We also share implications for teachers of SE team project courses on how to introduce peer evaluation and team contracts in such courses.

 Applying the Goal–Question–Metric (GQM) framework is quite challenging for students in software metrics courses, particularly when translating abstract goals into coherent GQM trees and conducting meaningful data analysis. This experience report describes the design, implementation, and perceived usefulness of two-stage collaborative peer-review workshops aimed at addressing these challenges. The workshops complement the existing course lectures by providing guided, collaborative, and feedback-rich learning activities. We analyzed student reflection reports from two course iterations. The results indicate that the workshops supported learning by application, improved understanding of the GQM framework, strengthened analytical skills, and promoted interactive and feedback-driven learning. We discuss how these findings align with the existing literature on collaborative learning and peer feedback in software engineering education.