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The Use of an Electronic Voting System in a Formal Methods Course

Explore the impact of using an Electronic Voting System (EVS) in a Formal Methods course to improve student engagement, participation, and learning outcomes. The study integrates EVS for tutorial-based sessions to encourage interaction, self-learning, and critical thinking. Sample questions, feedback, and discussions on concepts such as SPIN, temporal logics, and synchronous communication are highlighted.

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The Use of an Electronic Voting System in a Formal Methods Course

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  1. The Use of an Electronic Voting System in a Formal Methods Course Alice Miller and Quintin Cutts Department of Computing Science University of Glasgow

  2. MRS4 • Study of reactive, and distributed systems; • concepts of concurrency and communication • that arise in such systems; • - signalling, • - control • - associated modelling issues • focuses on use of SPIN model checker • consists of 20 lectures and ( 10) 1 hr labs

  3. Identified problems with lecture+lab: • Students unlikely to reflect on practical experience and relate to other formalisms • Mathematical nature of course does not promote interaction • Questions viewed as having only one answer • Students often don’t bother showing up to labs

  4. Introduced tutorial-based session using electronic voting system (EVS) to Encourage participation in lab sessions prior to tutorial Affect self-learning via reading of prescribed text Promote reflection and an appreciation that issues not always black and white The solution

  5. EVS: Electronic Voting System

  6. Sample questions • Questions 1-5 are assessed, questions 6-8 are not. • 1. In SPIN, what can be passed as parameters to processes? • (a) global variables and constants • (b) constants and channel names • channel names and global variables based on lab question 80% correct Encouraged students

  7. 4. One of the following statements about the temporal logics CTL and LTL is true. Which is it? (a) CTL is much more expressive (b) the expressiveness of the two logics do not overlap (c) LTL is more suitable for “on the fly” verification Based on text material 75% correct CTL not mentioned up to this point in lectures Could refer to it later on

  8. 6. What do you think of the statement ``SPIN allows us to accurately model synchronous communication'' (a) the statement is true (b) the statement is false (c) The statement is not exactly true, but it is close enough.

  9. Lively discussion Split into buzz groups, asked to provide examples of synchronous/asynchronous systems Generally difficult to decide

  10. 7. Some real world examples of protocols (e.g. IEEE 802.11, FireWire, bluetooth device discovery) include some notion of randomness and probability. However Gerard Holzmann does not believe that the addition of probabilities to SPIN is necessary. Do you: (a) agree (b) disagree (c) neither agree nor disagree (i.e. you have a better solution..)

  11. Half and half Buzz groups for 5 minutes 2 advocates chosen, to argue the point Only a few had heard of prism, seemed interested

  12. Reassurance students had read text Noticeable increase in student confidence in subsequent lectures EVS popular way to communicate anonymously Provided immediate feedback High level of discussion Outcomes

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