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Increasing engagement in automata theory with JFLAP

Published: 04 March 2009 Publication History

Abstract

We describe the results from a two-year study with fourteen universities on presenting formal languages in a more visual, interactive and applied manner using JFLAP. In our results the majority of students felt that having access to JFLAP made learning course concepts easier, made them feel more engaged in the course and made the course more enjoyable. We also describe changes and additions to JFLAP we have made based on feedback from users. These changes include new algorithms such as a CYK parser and a user-controlled parser, and new resources that include a JFLAP online tutorial, a wiki and a listserv.

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cover image ACM Conferences
SIGCSE '09: Proceedings of the 40th ACM technical symposium on Computer science education
March 2009
612 pages
ISBN:9781605581835
DOI:10.1145/1508865
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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Published: 04 March 2009

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Author Tags

  1. automata
  2. cyk parser
  3. formal languages
  4. jflap
  5. pumping lemma

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  • (2024)Redux: An Interactive, Dynamic Knowledge Base for Teaching NP-completenessProceedings of the 2024 on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3649217.3653544(255-261)Online publication date: 3-Jul-2024
  • (2024)Teaching Formal Languages through Programmed InstructionProceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3626252.3630940(867-873)Online publication date: 7-Mar-2024
  • (2024)Software Simulations of Spiking Neural P SystemsSpiking Neural P Systems10.1007/978-981-97-9282-5_11(317-376)Online publication date: 24-Sep-2024
  • (2023)Predicting Student Performance with Machine Learning Algorithms2023 3rd International Conference on Technological Advancements in Computational Sciences (ICTACS)10.1109/ICTACS59847.2023.10390077(1346-1353)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2023
  • (2023)AutomaTutor: An Educational Mobile App for Teaching Automata TheoryFormal Methods: Foundations and Applications10.1007/978-3-031-49342-3_8(131-140)Online publication date: 2-Dec-2023
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  • (2020)Teaching concepts related to finite automata using ComVisComputer Applications in Engineering Education10.1002/cae.2235329:5(994-1006)Online publication date: 19-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
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