[Class Report] System Development (Year 2) — Week 41
~Semester Wrap-Up and Portfolio Organization: Stepping Up to Year 3~
In Week 41, students looked back on the entire process they studied in Year 2—from system design to implementation and handover.
This session served as a comprehensive review, in which students organized their achievements into a portfolio, while also acting as a bridge to next year’s (Year 3) learning on API integration and the use of generative AI.
■ Teacher’s Introduction: “Reflection Is the Blueprint for the Next Challenge”
Mr. Tanaka:
“Over this past year, you have progressed from ‘building individually’ to ‘designing as a team and handing work over.’ Today, let’s make sure you can explain that growth in your own words.”
The teacher reviewed the learning accumulated in Year 1 and Year 2 in chronological order, encouraging students to focus not only on how their technical skills developed, but also on how their way of thinking has changed.
■ Exercise ①: Taking Stock of Year 2 Learning
Students first worked individually to整理 (organize) the topics they studied in Year 2.
Reflection Items
- Requirements definition (user stories, acceptance criteria)
- UML design (class diagrams, sequence diagrams)
- Database design (ER diagrams, normalization, indexes)
- DAO / Service separation
- Use-case integration
- Error handling
- Documentation and handover design
Student A: “I didn’t realize we had gone through so many phases…”
Student B: “Design diagrams didn’t make sense at first, but now I can read them naturally.”
■ Exercise ②: Reconstructing the Portfolio (Design-Focused)
Moving one level up from the Year 1 “deliverables-centered” approach, students rebuilt their portfolios into ones that clearly communicate
the design decisions and the reasons behind them.
Required Elements of the Year 2 Portfolio
- Project overview (background and issues)
- Key points of requirements definition (selected user stories)
- Design diagrams (representative UML / ER diagrams)
- Architecture explanation (DAO / Service structure)
- Processing flow of a representative use case
- Key ideas in error design
- README excerpts written with handover in mind
- Reflection (design challenges and lessons learned)
Student C: “Writing ‘why we chose this design’ was the hardest part, but it also felt the most important.”
■ Exercise ③: Self-Assessment and Peer Review
Next, students completed a self-assessment sheet and conducted peer reviews in pairs.
Self-Assessment Perspectives
- Design ability (could you build a structure from requirements?)
- Implementation ability (could you implement according to the design?)
- Coordination ability (bug handling and fixes during integration)
- Communication ability (documentation and explanations)
- Team contribution (roles and support)
Student D: “It’s refreshing that explanations—not just code—are evaluated.”
Student E: “Being praised by my partner for areas I thought were weak gave me confidence.”
■ Exercise ④: Introduction to Year 3 Content
In the latter half of the class, students were introduced to an overview of what they will study in Year 3.
Main Themes in Year 3
- API integration: connecting with external services (weather, maps, payments, etc.)
- Multi-service integration: creating your own APIs and connecting them with other services
- Asynchronous processing: designing for waiting times and failure scenarios
- Use of generative AI:
- Prompt design
- Output validation
- Safe methods of integration
- Operations and improvement: log analysis, improvement cycles, A/B testing
Mr. Tanaka commented,
“The ‘design and separation of responsibilities’ you practiced in Year 2 will become the foundation for Year 3.”
■ Discussion: What Students Want to Challenge Themselves With in Year 3
In small groups, students discussed the following topics and shared them with the class:
- What kinds of external services they want to integrate
- What problems they want to solve using generative AI
- How they want to evolve their Year 2 systems
Student F: “I want to add AI-based recommendations to our library system.”
Student G: “I want to create an API and connect it with other teams’ applications.”
■ Teacher’s Closing Remarks
“What you gained in Year 2 is
the ability to think before building and explain after building.
In Year 3, you will use that ability to create
systems that connect safely with the outside world (APIs and AI).
The portfolio you organized today will become the blueprint for your next challenge.”
■ Homework (Final Assignment of the Semester)
- Final submission of the Year 2 portfolio
- Create one system proposal you want to build in Year 3, in proposal format:
- Problem
- Planned APIs / AI to use
- Target users
- Summarize your strengths and the areas you want to improve next year (within 200 Japanese characters each)
■ Preview of Next Week: Start of the Year 3 Curriculum (Entering the World of APIs)
From next week, students move up a grade and begin learning from the basics:
what APIs are and how to connect to them safely.
The design skills built in Year 2 will finally expand into the realm of external integration.
Week 41 was a session to put Year 2 learning into words and prepare a running start for the next stage.
Students felt their steady growth and raised their expectations for the new challenges awaiting them in Year 3.