Abstract
In spite of decades of use of agent-based modelling in social policy research and in educational contexts, very little work has been done on combining the two. This paper accounts for a proof-of-concept single case-study conducted in a college-level Social Policy course, using agent-based modelling to teach students about the social and human aspects of urban planning and regional development. The study finds that an agent-based model helped a group of students think through a social policy design decision by acting as an object-to-think-with, and helped students better connect social policy outcomes with behaviours at the level of individual citizens. The study also suggests a set of new issues facing the design of Constructionist activities or environments for the social sciences.
Highlights
In this paper, we discuss how concepts in informatics such as computation, modeling, etc can be introduced to students who do not major in informatics-related disciplines using formal systems.A formal system (Alagar and Periyasamy, 2011) is a structure that consists of the following components:(1) A decidable set of expressions called well-formed formulas.(2) A decidable set of axioms which are wffs that are assumed to be true. (3) A set of truth-preserving transformations, called inference rules
From the feedbacks that we have had for about 5 years since 2008, we strongly be lieve that important subjects in informatics can be introduced to students whose majors are not in informatics-related disciplines using the notion of a formal system
We show how we can teach important, yet difficult issues in informatics to students whose majors are not in informatics-related disciplines using the notion of a formal system
Summary
We discuss how concepts in informatics such as computation, modeling, etc can be introduced to students who do not major in informatics-related disciplines using formal systems. A formal system (Alagar and Periyasamy, 2011) is a structure that consists of the following components:. (1) A decidable set (i.e., there is an algorithm that can tell whether an arbitrary ele ment is a member of the set or not) of expressions called well-formed formulas (wffs). (2) A decidable set of axioms which are wffs that are assumed to be true. (3) A set of truth-preserving transformations, called inference rules (2) A decidable set of axioms which are wffs that are assumed to be true. (3) A set of truth-preserving transformations, called inference rules
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