Why This Teacher Skips Test Plans and Shows Automation First

120 students, zero test plans. Dmitrij Nikolajev teaches software testing through Selenium, Postman, and performance labs—not documentation.* "Ideally, I would love to see one day a full bachelor program on software testing." - Dmitrij Nikolajev In this episode, I talk with Dmitrij Nikolajev about teaching software testing to the next generation. Dmitrij, who balances roles at InSoft and Vilnius University, shares his approach to making software testing engaging for students. He focuses on practical, hands-on experience, using tools like Postman and Selenium to teach automation and performance testing. Dmitrij redesigned his course to appeal to both new learners and those already in the industry. He leverages real-world examples to highlight the importance of testing, encouraging students to understand the consequences of failures. We also talk about the role of AI tools like ChatGPT in the learning process and their impact on student progress. 00:00 Teaching Software Testing Innovation 05:54 Bachelor Program in Software Testing 10:04 API Testing and Positive Reinforcement 12:36 Integrating Theory with Practice 15:42 Flexible Tooling for Test-Automation 20:28 Exploring Software Failures Impact 📘 Free e-book: The 7 success factors of software testing. 25 years of project experience in one 33-page workbook, now also in English 👉 https://tul.fm/ebook 🎯 Highlights: Introducing test automation and performance testing before test plans keeps students engaged because they experience what testing does before learning what it is called. Students using AI tools like ChatGPT to write automation code is not a problem to block but a skill to develop: the course responds by raising exercise complexity to match the faster pace. Codeless test tools are not truly codeless, because complex scenarios still require custom code, which means knowing how to write and evaluate code remains a core skill for testers. Graduated difficulty in lab exercises, where early tasks are easy enough to score points immediately, builds motivation that carries students through harder stages later in the course. Assigning students to research real software failures and present them to classmates, rather than to the lecturer, creates healthy peer competition and makes the cost of poor quality concrete. 🔗 Links Blog Post for Episode: https://www.richard-seidl.com/en/podc... 🎙️ More from Richard Seidl Website: https://www.richard-seidl.com Linkedin:   / richardseidl   Podcast Software Testing: https://www.testing-unleashed.fm #softwaretesting #QA #teachingsoftwaretesting