Students' Thoughts on Discrete Mathematics: Insights for Practice and Implications for Future Research
This program is tentative and subject to change.
Discrete mathematics has been a topic taught in the undergraduate computer science curriculum for decades. Most research publications that are focused on discrete mathematics focus on the teacher’s perspective of the course and the students. They also suggest that students struggle in the course due to a lack of mathematical maturity or motivation without presenting much empirical evidence. This paper fills the gap in research by focusing on what students think of discrete mathematics, including the concepts that they find easier and the ones that challenge them the most. We collected survey data from 132 computing students at a large public university. We analyzed the data utilizing descriptive statistics and open coding. We found that students identify proof writing as the most difficult concept to learn due to its difference from mathematics that they are most used to. Students also suggest that their challenge is not that they find the course as a whole irrelevant, which could cause a lack of motivation, but rather that specific topics were hard to understand or connect to computer science. We discuss these findings and discuss the implications and possible future directions for research in the area of discrete mathematics in the computer science curriculum.
This program is tentative and subject to change.
Thu 27 FebDisplayed time zone: Eastern Time (US & Canada) change
10:45 - 12:00 | |||
10:45 18mTalk | Mathematical underpinnings of algorithms via in-class activities Papers Ivona Bezakova Rochester Institute of Technology | ||
11:03 18mTalk | Measuring the Impact of Distractors on Student Learning Gains while Using Proof Blocks Papers Seth Poulsen Utah State University, Hongxuan Chen University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Yael Gertner University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Benjamin Cosman University of California at San Diego, USA, Matthew West University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign , Geoffrey Herman University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | ||
11:22 18mTalk | Satisfactory for all: supporting mastery learning with human-in-the-loop assessments in a discrete math course Papers | ||
11:41 18mTalk | Students' Thoughts on Discrete Mathematics: Insights for Practice and Implications for Future Research Papers David Magda University of Florida, Christina Gardner-McCune Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA |