Teaching Formal Languages through Visualizations, Machine Simulations, Auto-Graded Exercises, and Programmed Instruction

The material taught in a Formal Languages course is mathematical in nature and requires students to practice proofs and algorithms to understand the content. Traditional Formal Languages textbooks are heavy on prose, and homework typically consists of solving many paper exercises. Some instructors make use of finite state machine simulators like the JFLAP package. JFLAP helps students by allowing them to build models and apply various algorithms on these models, which improves student interaction with the studied material. However, students still need to read a significant amount of text and practice problems by hand to achieve understanding. Inspired by the principles of the Programmed Instruction (PI) teaching method, we seek to develop a new Formal Languages eTextbook capable of conveying these concepts more intuitively. The PI approach has students read a little, ideally a sentence or a paragraph, and then answer a question or complete an exercise related to that information. Based on the question response, students can continue to other information frames or retry to solve the exercise. Our goal is to present all algorithms using algorithm visualizations and produce proficiency exercises to let students demonstrate understanding. To evaluate the pedagogical effectiveness of our new eTextbook, we conduct time and performance evaluations across two offerings of the course CS4114 Formal Languages and Automata. In time evaluation, the time spent by students looking at instructional content with text and visualizations versus with PI frames is compared to determine levels of student engagement. In performance evaluation, students grades are compared to assess learning gains with text and paper exercises only, with text, visualizations with exercises, and with PI frames.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Computer Science and Applications

Department dc:contributor.department

Computer Science

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2021

Author dc:creator

• Mohammed, Mostafa Kamel Osman

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Shaffer, Clifford A.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Rodger, Susan H.
• Heath, Lenwood S.
• Ernst, Jeremy V.
• Kafura, Dennis G.

• Formal Languages
• Programmed Instruction
• visualizations
• pedagogical evaluation
• automated assessment
• Turing Machines
• JFLAP
• OpenFLAP
• Engagement Taxonomy
• Auto-graded exercises
• Proficiency exercises

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Dc Identifier Other

vt_gsexam:31929

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/113061