Didactic Approach for Teaching Nondeterminism in Automata Theory

Abstract: Nondeterminism plays a central role in almost all fields of computer science. It has been incorporated naturally as well as in the theory of automata as a generalization of determinism. Although nondeterministic finite automata do not have more recognition power than deterministic ones their importance and usefulness is of no doubt. Unfortunately, the operation of the mathematical model of nondeterministic automata is difficult to understand which means a didactic challenge for every teacher and lecturer. This paper gives a didactic approach to introduce the notion of finite (deterministic and) nondeterministic automata. As a teaching tool we make use of the automata theory package developed in Maple. We put emphasis on the process character of learning and work out a method that promotes the repetitive experiments