Mathematical proofs as graph search problems in theory courses

  • Authors:
  • Jose L. Cordova

  • Affiliations:
  • Dept. of Computer Science, Northeast Louisiana Univ., Monroe, Louisiana

  • Venue:
  • SIGCSE '99 The proceedings of the thirtieth SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education
  • Year:
  • 1999

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Abstract

In this paper, we describe a graph-based approach to the construction of simple mathematical proofs. In contrast with traditional linear proofs, this technique helps the student organize the solution process and provides a visual representation of the proof. This approach has been used to introduce proofs in a discrete structure course. The author has observed a statistically significant increase in students' performance when answering related test problems.