Abstract
There are many benefits in providing formal specifications for our software. However, teaching students to do this is not always easy as courses on formal methods are often experienced as dry by students. This paper presents a game called FormalZ that teachers can use to introduce some variation in their class. Students can have some fun in playing the game and, while doing so, also learn the basics of writing formal specifications in the form of pre- and post-conditions. Unlike existing software engineering themed education games such as Pex and Code Defenders, FormalZ takes the deep gamification approach where playing gets a more central role in order to generate more engagement. This short paper presents our work in progress: the first implementation of FormalZ along with the result of a preliminary users' evaluation. This implementation is functionally complete and tested, but the polishing of its user interface is still future work.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Proceedings - 2019 IEEE/ACM 41st International Conference on Software Engineering |
Subtitle of host publication | Software Engineering Education and Training, ICSE-SEET 2019 |
Publisher | IEEE |
Pages | 192-196 |
Number of pages | 5 |
ISBN (Electronic) | 9781728110004 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Mar 2019 |
Event | 41st IEEE/ACM International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering Education and Training, ICSE-SEET 2019 - Montreal, Canada Duration: 25 May 2019 → 31 May 2019 |
Conference
Conference | 41st IEEE/ACM International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering Education and Training, ICSE-SEET 2019 |
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Country/Territory | Canada |
City | Montreal |
Period | 25/05/19 → 31/05/19 |
Keywords
- Gamification in teaching formal method
- Gamification in teaching software engineering
- Teaching formal method