TY - GEN
T1 - Pseudo abstract composition
T2 - 17th ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education, ITiCSE'12
AU - Alankry, Ronnie
AU - Ginat, David
PY - 2012
Y1 - 2012
N2 - Composition is a fundamental problem solving heuristic. In computer science, it primarily appears in program design with concrete objects such as language constructs. It also appears in more abstract forms in higher-level courses. One such form is that of language concatenation in the Computational Models course. This concatenation involves the composition of two specifications of infinite sets (source languages) into a third one, and requires both abstraction and non-deterministic conception. In this paper, we illuminate behaviors of advanced high school students, with such composition. Students who encountered difficulties offered pseudo solutions, which enclosed only "surface" features and observations. We orderly display their solutions, discuss them, and offer suggestions for educators to cope with this phenomenon.
AB - Composition is a fundamental problem solving heuristic. In computer science, it primarily appears in program design with concrete objects such as language constructs. It also appears in more abstract forms in higher-level courses. One such form is that of language concatenation in the Computational Models course. This concatenation involves the composition of two specifications of infinite sets (source languages) into a third one, and requires both abstraction and non-deterministic conception. In this paper, we illuminate behaviors of advanced high school students, with such composition. Students who encountered difficulties offered pseudo solutions, which enclosed only "surface" features and observations. We orderly display their solutions, discuss them, and offer suggestions for educators to cope with this phenomenon.
KW - abstraction
KW - composition
KW - computational models
KW - concatenation
KW - non-determinism
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84864664142&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1145/2325296.2325307
DO - 10.1145/2325296.2325307
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AN - SCOPUS:84864664142
SN - 9781450312462
T3 - Annual Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education, ITiCSE
SP - 28
EP - 33
BT - ITiCSE'12 - Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education
Y2 - 3 July 2012 through 5 July 2012
ER -