Software testing continues to be one of the main approaches used to validate software even as software systems become more complex. Although there is increased software testing throughout the software development life cycle in the industry, academic institutions continue to lag in offering software testing courses that adequately prepare students for jobs in the industry. In addition, academic institutions continue to grapple with how best to integrate software testing into their curricula. This paper presents the experiences after teaching an undergraduate software testing course over four non-consecutive years, focusing mainly on the class project. During this period, different approaches were used to implement the project activities. These approaches are (a) testing different capstone projects that are sponsored by local companies, (b) all student teams testing a single project that is being developed at the same time, and (c) testing a single project that has been previously developed. Each approach presented several advantages and challenges for both the students and the instructor, as described in the paper. Based on the experience after teaching the course with different types of group projects, we present lessons learned and recommendations for future editions of the course. These recommendations include offering the software testing course earlier in the curriculum and implementing a peer-evaluation process for the group projects. These recommendations are consistent with other experience reports described in the literature.
