Approaches for Teaching Prolog to Beginners

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Approaches for Teaching Prolog to Beginners

• By Shanshan Yang Mike Joy

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Outline of the Presentation

• Background
• Methods
• Findings
• Further work

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Teaching and Learning Prolog

• Prolog A typical declarative language
• Challenges Novices develop a Prolog mindset
• Motivation Aids novices to develop a Prolog
  mindset

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Teaching Approaches

• The first phase of this Project - study what
  teaching approaches have been used
• To aid learners to build a Prolog mindset
• To deliver the first impression of Prolog
• To link novices from different backgrounds into
  the Prolog community

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Methods

• Analyse a comprehensive selection of 14 Prolog
  textbooks to classify the teaching Approaches
• Compare the classification with teaching content
  to identify the prerequisites for these
  approaches
• Compare the years of textbooks published to
  demonstrate how the choice of approaches has
  changed over time

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Findings

• Classification of teaching approaches
• Logic based approaches
• Declarative features approaches
• Program based approaches

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Classification 1

• Logic based approaches
• covers mathematic logic and/or logic programming
  first.
• Theoretical foundation - first-order predicate
  logic
• For example
• The art of Prolog advanced programming
  techniques by Sterling I. 1994
• Mastering Prolog by Lucas B. 1996

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Classification 2

• Declarative features approaches
• Specification tool based
• Database based
• Problem solving based
• System Based
• Known facts and relations based
• For example
• Prolog programming for artificial intelligence by
  Bratko I. 2001
• Programming in Prolog by Clocksin W.F. Mellish
  C.S. 2003

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Classification 3

• Program based approaches
• Viewing the program constructs contained
• Viewing the interactions
• between the programmer, program and interpreter
• For example
• Logic programming with Prolog by Bramer M. 2005

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Teaching Content

• Approaches are used to introduce the basic ideas
  of Prolog at the beginning of the learning
  process

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Prerequisites

• Background Knowledge
• Abstract theory
• first order predicate logic
• Related academic knowledge
• Database
• Program specification
• Related computer knowledge
• Using computer systems

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Trend of changes over time

• Because more practical and concrete

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Conclusions

• Categorised teaching approaches currently in use
• Identified prerequisites are required for these
  approaches
• Identified trend of choice of approaches changes
  in the past 25 years
• Further work