Abstract

In absence of a personal tutor, exercises follow a generate-solve-grade pattern that takes days before students receive feedback on their performance. The concept of an automatic tutor, using today's information and communication technology, aims to replace the solve-grade phase by an interaction process between student and tutor. This is possible in certain mathematically structured domains of knowledge where solutions and its processes can be checked algorithmically. Exorciser is a framework for exercises in an introductory course on the Theory of Computation where students test their mastery of basic concepts while the system's fine-grained grading pinpoints the source of any misunderstanding.