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Sat, Nov 8, 8:30 - 8:55, Pueblo A Paper (refereed)

Recommended Citation: McMaster, K, B Rague, and S Hadfield. Two Frameworks for Discrete Mathematics. In The Proceedings of the Information Systems Education Conference 2008, v 25 (Phoenix): §3113. ISSN: 1542-7382. (A later version appears in Information Systems Education Journal 7(68). ISSN: 1545-679X.)

Two Frameworks for Discrete Mathematics

Refereed

9 pages

Kirby McMaster    [a1] [a2]
CS Department
Weber State University    [u1] [u2]
Ogden, Utah, USA    [c1] [c2]

Brian Rague    [a1] [a2]
CS Department
Weber State University    [u1] [u2]
Ogden, Utah, USA    [c1] [c2]

Steven Hadfield    [a1] [a2]
CS Department
Air Force Academy    [u1] [u2]
USAFA, Colorado, USA    [c1] [c2]

Information Systems and Computer Science educators have campaigned to increase mathematical content in the computing curriculum. Unfortunately, mathematical concepts are often presented in a manner that conflicts with the general mental framework, or gestalt, of IS and CS students. However, there is more than one gestalt in mathematics. In previous research, we developed two scales for measuring mathematical gestalt in books--a Logical Math scale and a Computational Math scale. In this paper, we apply our two scales to current Discrete Math textbooks to assess the relative emphasis these books give to each gestalt. Our findings have relevance in the development of approaches for teaching mathematical topics in computer courses, especially Discrete Math courses.

Keywords: framework, gestalt, discrete math, logical math, computational math

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