Chief Chefs of Z to Alloy: Using a Kitchen Example to Teach Alloy with Z
TFM '09 Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Teaching Formal Methods
A learning space for beginning programming students
Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges
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In his remarkable book, "The Art of Changing the Brain[1]", James Zull describes how emerging research on brain functions supports the work of Kolb, Piaget, Dewey, and others on experiential learning. Then Zull argues that we can use this knowledge about how the brain works to change the way that we teach - and more importantly affect the way that our students learn. This paper discusses steps that the author has used personally to change the way that he teaches programming in our CS1 course, based on ideas presented in Zull's book. Of particular interest are a set of "Learning Exercises" developed specifically to promote reflective observation and the development and testing of hypotheses by students. Initial observations suggest that the exercises have indeed made a difference in how students have learned.