Translating Diagrams: A New Approach to Introducing Formal Methods

This paper describes an innovative approach to introducing students to formal methods in software engineering, which has been derived from research work in methods integration. The pedagogical basis for this approach is discussed, and particularly the need for students to be taught a clear and well-structured process for developing formal specifications. The approach and the process that it uses is described, and illustrated with examples from the course material that has been developed. The results obtained from using this approach are described, which demonstrate that it has been more successful than the traditional approaches used previously