Discrete mathematics for computing students: A programming oriented approach with Alloy

Students in computing disciplines need a strong basis in the fundamentals of discrete mathematics. Traditional “offline” approaches to teaching this material provide limited opportunities for the kind of interactive learning that students experience in their programming assignments. We have been using the Alloy language and analysis tool to teach concepts in discrete structures and logic in an exploratory, programming-intensive way. We report on our efforts to build scaffolded Alloy exercises for newcomers to discrete mathematics, and we report on some initial findings based on our experiences with students.