Extreme programming promotes extreme learning?

Extreme programming (XP) is an agile methodology claimed to promote the rapid development of software systems, enabling the accommodation of changing customer requirements during the project lifecycle without excessive cost penalties. The mechanisms used to achieve this require the software development team to maintain accurate tacit knowledge through extensive face-to-face communication and peer learning. This characteristic of XP, the authors argue, makes it a suitable tool in the teaching of new technologies to software engineering students. This is borne out by feedback from a group of fourth-year Master of Engineering (MEng) software engineering undergraduate students who undertook an XP-based project as part of their course. Furthermore, the authors argue that the methodology is best taught in its full form through group project work. This is most effective when undertaken in the latter years of a computer science or software engineering course, after the students have been exposed to more traditional, plan-based methodologies.