research-article

Computability and Algorithmic Complexity Questions in Secondary Education

Author:

Rafael del Vado VírsedaAuthors Info & Claims

CompEd '19: Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Global Computing Education

Pages 51 - 57

https://doi.org/10.1145/3300115.3309507

Published: 09 May 2019 Publication History

Abstract

Theoretical computing is a difficult area to teach in university courses due to different causes. Many students who begin computing subjects have little mathematical or theoretical background. It is important that students acquire an intuitive knowledge of these theoretical concepts before they finish their secondary education. In this work we describe how to bring computability and complexity questions in secondary education to address classic issues raised in the curriculum about the limits of mathematics and its formal systems, and subsequently, their algorithmic and algebraic complexity. We report a complete educational experience for enhancing the algorithmic curriculum of pre-university computing and mathematics courses to know what computability and algorithmic complexity questions may be introduced into secondary education, how to teach these concepts, and train teachers to do it. The good experimental results obtained are compared with the results in standard high school courses in which these questions about theoretical computing are not addressed. The conclusions obtained are exposed, as well as the pros and cons of the educational experience carried out, so that they can be taken into account in the future design for the curriculum of an official subject in computing on a global scale, or be included in the curriculum of pre-university courses.

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Cited By

del Vado Vírseda RDoyle MStephenson BDorn BSoh LBattestilli L(2023)Theoretical Computer Science Education from Impossibility and Undecidability Problems in PhysicsProceedings of the 54th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3545945.3569742(270-276)Online publication date: 2-Mar-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3545945.3569742
del Vado Vírseda RSherriff MMerkle LCutter PMonge ASheard J(2021)Learning from the ImpossibleProceedings of the 52nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education10.1145/3408877.3432475(952-958)Online publication date: 3-Mar-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3408877.3432475
del Vado Vírseda R(2020)From the Mathematical Impossibility Results of the High School Curriculum to Theoretical Computer ScienceProceedings of the 20th Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research10.1145/3428029.3428038(1-5)Online publication date: 19-Nov-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3428029.3428038
Show More Cited By

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Computability and Algorithmic Complexity Questions in Secondary Education

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Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

CompEd '19: Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Global Computing Education

May 2019

260 pages

ISBN:9781450362597

DOI:10.1145/3300115

General Chairs:
Ming Zhang
Peking University, China
,
Bo Yang
Linyi University, China
,
Program Chairs:
Steve Cooper
University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA
,
Andrew Luxton-Reilly
University of Auckland, New Zealand

Copyright © 2019 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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SIGCSE: ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education

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Published: 09 May 2019

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CompEd '19

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SIGCSE

CompEd '19: ACM Global Computing Education Conference 2019

May 9 - 19, 2019

Chengdu,Sichuan, China

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CompEd '19 Paper Acceptance Rate 33 of 100 submissions, 33%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 33 of 100 submissions, 33%

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CompEd '25

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sigcse

ACM Global Computing Education Conference 2025

October 21 - 25, 2025

Gaborone , Botswana

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Cited By

del Vado Vírseda RDoyle MStephenson BDorn BSoh LBattestilli L(2023)Theoretical Computer Science Education from Impossibility and Undecidability Problems in PhysicsProceedings of the 54th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3545945.3569742(270-276)Online publication date: 2-Mar-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3545945.3569742
del Vado Vírseda RSherriff MMerkle LCutter PMonge ASheard J(2021)Learning from the ImpossibleProceedings of the 52nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education10.1145/3408877.3432475(952-958)Online publication date: 3-Mar-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3408877.3432475
del Vado Vírseda R(2020)From the Mathematical Impossibility Results of the High School Curriculum to Theoretical Computer ScienceProceedings of the 20th Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research10.1145/3428029.3428038(1-5)Online publication date: 19-Nov-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3428029.3428038
del Vado Vírseda RGiannakos MSindre GLuxton-Reilly ADivitini M(2020)Learning Theoretical Computing from the Mathematical Impossibility Results of the CS CurriculumProceedings of the 2020 ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education10.1145/3341525.3393986(521-522)Online publication date: 15-Jun-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3341525.3393986

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