Didactic Strategies for Promoting Significant Learning in Formal Languages and Automata Theory

摘要

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 con-structivist approach. The main aim of the proposed strategies is to promote a more significant learning of several important FLAT topics.