Formal Specification in Basic Education: What Does It Take?
Braz Araujo da Silva, Simone André da Costa Cavalheiro, Luciana Foss, Júlia Veiga da Silva · 2023
Massively applied in critical systems, formal methods of specification and verification have gained importance in a world where computer systems grow larger and larger. There are long-known challenges to teaching formal methods in higher education. But, as it is often considered an advanced topic of software engineering, it is rarely cogitated in basic education. Aiming at this unusual public, this paper explores a new take on formal specification: the development of fundamental modeling and evaluation skills, rather than the technical competence to prove correctness. Known challenges and strategies are revisited highlighting what changes when the teaching moves from universities to schools. Studies approaching related topics with kids and teens are discussed. Then game design with Graph Grammars is presented as an example of how to tackle the mentioned challenges and employ the respective strategies.