This program is tentative and subject to change.
In their first Formal Languages and Automata Theory course students find Turing machine composition challenging. In addition to the development of formal arguments, most students struggle with the idea that a Turing machine may use auxiliary Turing machines to solve a problem. This struggle is significant despite understanding that the use of auxiliary Turing machines is tantamount to using auxiliary functions in a program. This article presents two visualization tools developed to help students understand Turing machine composition. These tools are integrated into FSM–a domain-specific functional language for the Automata Theory classroom. The first is a static visualization tool that generates the transition diagram of a given composed Turing machine. The second is an interactive tool that simulates the execution of a given composed Turing machine. Empirical data collected from students is presented that suggests that the tools are well-received, easy to use, and useful.
This program is tentative and subject to change.
Thu 24 OctDisplayed time zone: Pacific Time (US & Canada) change
10:40 - 12:20 | |||
10:40 20mTalk | Gender Differences in Story, Game and Visual Adventures in Hedy SPLASH-E Shirley de Wit Delft University of Technology, Felienne Hermans Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Marcus Specht Delft University of Technology, Efthimia Aivaloglou Delft University of Technology | ||
11:00 20mTalk | Roles of Variables in the Hedy programming language SPLASH-E Julia Vanwijnsberghe-Bolt Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Felienne Hermans Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam | ||
11:20 20mBreak | SPLASH-E Break SPLASH-E | ||
11:40 20mTalk | Using Computation Graphs to Explain Nondeterminism to Students SPLASH-E | ||
12:00 20mTalk | Visualizing Composed Turing Machines SPLASH-E |