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Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons™
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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Finitely Presented Groups For The Undergraduate Algebra Student, Davis Shurbert
Finitely Presented Groups For The Undergraduate Algebra Student, Davis Shurbert
Summer Research
The concept of a finitely presented group is a topic which students do not normally see until graduate school. Through contributions to the open source computer algebra system Sage, I was able to accomplish my goal of making finitely presented groups more accessible to undergraduate students. Implementing this goal required a series of smaller tasks, all building together to expand the original framework regarding this type of group representation. I began my research by creating a catalogue of named groups easily accessible to the user as finitely presented group objects, along with a method to convert from a permutation group …
Fostering Logical Thinking In Novice Student Programmers, Kyle Wenholz
Fostering Logical Thinking In Novice Student Programmers, Kyle Wenholz
Summer Research
Many student programmers practice what is called tinkering (attempting to fix broken code by making small haphazard changes). Tinkering wastes time and circumvents the pedagogical purposes of programming exercises in introductory computer science courses. The tinkering process is focused on editing the code before submitting it for compilation, a process that takes code written in a high-level language for translation into machine language (something interpreted directly by the computer). Our hypothesis is that it may be possible to dissuade tinkering by introducing a delay into the compile step, where this delay will keep the student programmer from making changes to …