Workshop 108: Integrating Parallel and Distributed Computing in Early Computing Classes
Parallel and distributed computing (PDC) has become pervasive in all aspects of computing, and thus it is essential that students include parallelism and distribution in the computational thinking that they apply to problem solving, from the very beginning. Computer science education is still teaching to a 20th century model of algorithmic problem solving. Sequence, branch, and loop are taught in our early courses as the only organizing principles needed for algorithms, and we invest considerable time in showing how best to sequentially process large volumes of data. All computing devices that students use currently have multiple cores as well as a GPU in many cases. Most of their favorite applications use multiple cores and distributed resources. Often concurrency offers simpler solutions than sequential approaches. However, we are still teaching students to solve problems using sequential thinking. In this workshop we overview key PDC concepts and provide examples of how they may naturally be incorporated in early computing classes. We will introduce plugged and unplugged curriculum modules that have been successfully integrated in existing computing classes at multiple institutions. We will also highlight other CDER activities for integration of PDC in undergraduate computing curricula.
Wed 20 MarDisplayed time zone: Pacific Time (US & Canada) change
19:00 - 22:00 | |||
19:00 3hTalk | Workshop 108: Integrating Parallel and Distributed Computing in Early Computing Classes Workshops Alan Sussman University of Maryland, Sushil Prasad Georgia State University, Charles Weems University of Massachusetts, Sheikh Ghafoor Tennessee Tech University, Ramachandran Vaidyanathan Louisiana State University |