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Didactic strategies for promoting significant learning in formal languages and automata theory

Published: 28 June 2004 Publication History

Abstract

An undergraduate course in Formal Languages and Automata Theory (FLAT) involves different topics that are core to the CS curricula and whose level of abstraction makes them difficult both to teach and to learn. Such difficulty stems from the complexity of the abstract notions involved and the required mathematical background. Surveys conducted among our students showed that many of them were applying some theoretical concepts mechanically rather than developing a significant learning of them, leading to a lack of motivation and interest. To cope with this problem, we introduced a number of didactic strategies based on a constructivist approach. The main aim of the proposed strategies is to promote a more significant learning of several important FLAT topics.

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  1. Didactic strategies for promoting significant learning in formal languages and automata theory

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      Published In

      cover image ACM SIGCSE Bulletin
      ACM SIGCSE Bulletin  Volume 36, Issue 3
      September 2004
      280 pages
      ISSN:0097-8418
      DOI:10.1145/1026487
      Issue’s Table of Contents
      • cover image ACM Conferences
        ITiCSE '04: Proceedings of the 9th annual SIGCSE conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education
        June 2004
        296 pages
        ISBN:1581138369
        DOI:10.1145/1007996
      Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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      Association for Computing Machinery

      New York, NY, United States

      Publication History

      Published: 28 June 2004
      Published in SIGCSE Volume 36, Issue 3

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      Author Tags

      1. automata theory
      2. constructivism
      3. formal languages

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      • (2020)A differentiated picture of student performance in introductory courses to theory of computationComputer Science Education10.1080/08993408.2020.1809946(1-25)Online publication date: 4-Oct-2020
      • (2020)Evaluation of simulation systems suitable for teaching compiler construction coursesComputer Applications in Engineering Education10.1002/cae.2223128:3(606-625)Online publication date: 31-Mar-2020
      • (2019)Comparative analysis of simulation system for teaching compilersBizinfo Blace10.5937/bizinfo1902001S10:2(1-23)Online publication date: 2019
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