Using Formal Methods for Teaching Software Engineering: A Tool-Based Approach

In this paper we describe and review the course plan and syllabus we use in a course on formal methods in software engineering currently included in the degree in Informatics of the Faculty of Sciences at the University of Bologna. The course matches the theory of formal methods with their practice based on actual tool usage. In fact, the course is centered upon a project whose main goal is to let students learn some formal speci cation techniques all supported by speci c tools. The students use well-known notations for both requirements speci cation and formal design. The formal methods we use are based on the Z notation for requirements speci cation and on the Larch family of languages for design speci cations. ii , 1