Work in progress — Developing a cognitively based digital logic calculator

Cognitive research in digital logic has shown that students struggle to organize their knowledge of concepts and tools into meaningful categories that facilitate problem solving or design. When students learn about digital logic design tools, they must practice using these tools independently and often come to think of these tools as “problems-unto-themselves,” rather than as tools that can be used to solve more complicated problems. To help students properly organize their knowledge of digital logic design tools, we propose the creation of a digital logic calculator that helps students learn the purposes and functionality of the different digital logic design tools.