Teaching non-determinism in computer science
Leading team:
- Prof. Michal Armoni
- Prof. Mordechai (Moti) Ben-Ari
Project team:
- Dr. Noa Lewenstein (Netanya Academic College)
Brief
This project aimed to provide a profound analysis of non-determinism, which is an abstract and challenging fundamental idea of computer science, and explored teaching and learning non-determinism in various curricular contexts.
Non-determinism is a fundamental idea of computer science with various manifestations. In some contexts it is an external constraint, whereas in others it is an expressive tool, enabling the description of states of non-preference. This idea has evolved throughout the history of CS in manners echoed in its teaching approaches.
This project had two facets: theoretical and empirical. The first dealt with the historical evolution of this idea in CS and CS education. The second dealt with teaching and learning non-determinism in various contexts and age levels.
Our findings indicate that students are capable of perceiving and understanding non-determinism despite its very abstract nature, and that there is no need for over-processing which may reduce the challenges in teaching and learning this subject, but might also prevent students from achieving a genuine conceptual appreciation of non-determinism.
Further reading:
- Armoni, M., & Gal-Ezer, J. (2003). Non-determinism in CS high-school curricula. In Proceedings of the 33rd ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE03, Boulder, CO), F2C-18-23. IEEE.
- Armoni, M., & Gal-Ezer, J. (2006). Introducing non-determinism. Journal of Computers in Mathematics and Science Teaching, 25(4), 325-359.
- Armoni, M., & Gal-Ezer, J. (2007). Non-determinism: An abstract concept in computer science studies. Computer Science Education, 17(4), 243-262.
- Armoni, M., Lewenstein, N., & Ben-Ari, M. (2008). Teaching students to think nondeterministically. In Proceedings of the 39th SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE08), Portland, OR, 4-8.
- Armoni, M., & Ben-Ari, M. (2008). The concept of nondeterminism: Its development and implications for teaching. Science & Education, 18(8), 1005-1030.
- Reprinted in Inroads – SIGCSE Bulletin (2009), 41(2), 141-160.
- Alexandron, G., Armoni, M., Gordon, G., & Harel, D. (2013). On Teaching Programming with Nondeterminism. In Proceedings of the 8th Workshop in Primary and Secondary Computing Education (WiPSCE 2013), Aarhus, Denmark, 71-74).
- Alexandron, G., Armoni, M., Gordon, M., & Harel, D. (2016). Teaching nondeterminism through programming. Informatics in Education 15(1), 1-23.