Date/Time
Date(s) - 29 Apr 2011 until 29 Apr 2011
9:00 AM - 10:00 AM

Location
Anfiteatro do CCET

Category(ies)

• LoLITA Seminars

Abstract: When trying their hand with the many varieties of logical consequence and faced with arbitrary exercises in which conjectures need to be either proved or refuted, logic students very rarely try, as far as our experience tells us, to produce counter-examples to universal assertions.  This is, nevertheless, an ill-judged strategy, as arbitrary universal assertions are much more likely to be falsifiable than verifiable.  In this contribution we develop a learning script based on some particular problem-solving heuristics that give support to the user for the relatively free experimentation with logical arguments and strategies.  Whatever is the choice of solution selected by the student, a fully detailed proof is expected at the end: either a natural deduction proof or a counter-model, according to the case.  With some luck, this is supposed to give the student some insight, also, on metatheoretical results such as soundness and completeness.  The script is implemented by the learning object (Non)Sequitur, introduced as a complex module of the Logicamente, a Virtual Learning Environment that has been proposed for teaching and learning logic at an undergraduate level.