Content area

Abstract

Greedy algorithms is an important class of algorithms. Teaching greedy algorithms is a complex task. Ensuring that students can design greedy algorithms for new problems is also complex. We have built a guided discovery based greedy algorithm tutor (GATutor), to teach the process of designing greedy algorithms. GATutor guides the student to discover the greedy algorithm for a few well-known problems, by asking two important questions -- i) what is the satisfying condition at each step? and ii) what is the selection criterion for the next item? As a result, the students not only learn the algorithms for the given problems, but also the process of designing greedy algorithms for new problems. We conducted a study to compare the greedy algorithm design abilities of the students who were trained with GATutor versus those who worked with traditional algorithm visualizations. The results indicate that students who worked with GATutor performed better in designing a greedy algorithm for a new problem. The students also said that their confidence in greedy algorithm design increased because of GATutor.

Details

Title
GATutor: A Guided Discovery Based Tutor for Designing Greedy Algorithm
Correspondence author
Pages
61-68
Number of pages
8
Publication year
2015
Publisher
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc., 345 E. 47th St. NY NY 10017-2394 USA
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Summary language
English
Language of publication
English
Document type
Journal Article, Conference
Subfile
Computer and Information Systems Abstracts (CI)
Update
2016-09-01
Accession number
PQ0002869960
ProQuest document ID
1816030920
Document URL
https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/gatutor-guided-discovery-based-tutor-designing/docview/1816030920/se-2?accountid=208611
Last updated
2016-09-02
Database
ProQuest One Academic