An adaptive Theory of Computation online course in ActiveMath

A standard Theory of Computation course for undergraduates spans three important topics that are at the core of the computer science (CS) curriculum: automata and languages, computability, and elementary complexity theory. The level of abstraction makes the course demanding to teach, but also to learn. The traditional static ”one size fits all” textbook, or e-textbook, cannot adapt to different students according to their background knowledge, experience, personal preferences, and learning goals. In response to these shortcomings, we report on the design and a prototype implementation of an adaptive e-textbook for the undergraduate course Theory of Computation in ActiveMath. The main challenges are to develop an ontology for the core concepts suitable for the semantic knowledge representation of Active-Math, which is the basis for the adaptivity, and then to actually create the course content, i.e., the definitions, theorems, proofs, examples, exercises, and interactive visualizations according to the constructivist approach to teach this course.