Learning MMIX in Secondary School Through Conjecture, Critique, and Experimentation
Emma H. Wong, Steven H. Hassani · 2016
We report the early stages of our effort to introduce the mythical MMIX computer described in The Art of Computer Programming in an initial computer science course for secondary school students. Rather than starting students with a rigorous mathematical specification of the machine, we instead introduce an approach by which students conjecture their own explanations of machine instructions, and critique their explanations using experimentation. Students iteratively improve their explanations over time. When explanations reach a certain level of specificity, students are introduced to the mathematics required to describe the MMIX machine. Our preliminary work suggests that, when taught in this way, The Art of Computer Programming can be made both accessible and exciting to secondary school students without sacrificing rigor.