{"title":"Using Mediational Means during Learning and Understanding of Proof Assignments from Theory of Computation","authors":"Christiane Frede","doi":"10.1145/3105726.3105734","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"There is a lack of empirically validated studies about how students solve proof assignments in their Theory of Computation (ToC) courses. I want to get detailed insights about the nature of students' difficulties with this field of computer science (CS). To gather data, I want to perform several qualitative studies investigating how undergraduate CS majors solve assignments in individually-formed study groups. I will use Distributed Cognition Theory (DCOG) as the underlying theoretical framework and understand cognitive processes as an interplay between several humans, their environment, resources and tools/mediational means. In the context of ToC, tools/mediational means are all mathematical inscriptions, definitions and concepts as well as natural language or physical media like pen & paper or whiteboards. The goal of this dissertation is to understand how student groups use provided and their own mediational means and whether they are successful during solving proof assignments.","PeriodicalId":267640,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the 2017 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research","volume":"102 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2017-08-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Proceedings of the 2017 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3105726.3105734","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
There is a lack of empirically validated studies about how students solve proof assignments in their Theory of Computation (ToC) courses. I want to get detailed insights about the nature of students' difficulties with this field of computer science (CS). To gather data, I want to perform several qualitative studies investigating how undergraduate CS majors solve assignments in individually-formed study groups. I will use Distributed Cognition Theory (DCOG) as the underlying theoretical framework and understand cognitive processes as an interplay between several humans, their environment, resources and tools/mediational means. In the context of ToC, tools/mediational means are all mathematical inscriptions, definitions and concepts as well as natural language or physical media like pen & paper or whiteboards. The goal of this dissertation is to understand how student groups use provided and their own mediational means and whether they are successful during solving proof assignments.