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Injecting parallel computing into CS2

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Joel C. AdamsAuthors Info & Claims

SIGCSE '14: Proceedings of the 45th ACM technical symposium on Computer science education

Pages 277 - 282

https://doi.org/10.1145/2538862.2538883

Published: 05 March 2014 Publication History

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Abstract

In today's multicore world, every CS student should learn about and gain experience with (at least) shared-memory parallelism. CS Curriculum 2013 acknowledges this by shifting parallel computing from elective status into the core. This paper argues that students should be introduced to parallelism early, that the CS2 (Data Structures) course is a natural place to do so, and reports our experience in doing this. The paper also argues that students should be taught to solve problems using parallel patterns, which are industry-standard best-practice strategies for parallel problem solving. To support such teaching, the paper presents patternlets -- minimalist, scalable, executable programs, each illustrating the behavior of a parallel pattern -- as a useful pedagogical tool for teaching parallel concepts. Several patternlets and their executions are given. The paper presents evidence that this injection of parallelism into CS2 has been successful.

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Newhall TWebb KChaganti VDanner A(2025)An Introductory-level Undergraduate CS Course that Introduces Parallel ComputingJournal of Parallel and Distributed Computing10.1016/j.jpdc.2025.105044(105044)Online publication date: Feb-2025
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpdc.2025.105044
Shoop EBrown RMatthews SAdams J(2024)Interactive Textbooks for Parallel and Distributed Computing Across the Undergraduate CS Curriculum2024 IEEE International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium Workshops (IPDPSW)10.1109/IPDPSW63119.2024.00085(377-384)Online publication date: 27-May-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/IPDPSW63119.2024.00085
Brown DGhafoor SRogers MHaynes A(2023)Faculty Development Workshops for Integrating PDC in Early Undergraduate Curricula: An Experience ReportProceedings of the SC '23 Workshops of The International Conference on High Performance Computing, Network, Storage, and Analysis10.1145/3624062.3624097(314-323)Online publication date: 12-Nov-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3624062.3624097
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Index Terms

Injecting parallel computing into CS2
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing education
      1. Computing education programs
        Computer science education
      2. Model curricula

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Published In

SIGCSE '14: Proceedings of the 45th ACM technical symposium on Computer science education

March 2014

800 pages

ISBN:9781450326056

DOI:10.1145/2538862

Conference Chairs:
J. D. Dougherty
J.D. Dougherty, Haverford College
,
Kris Nagel
Georgia Gwinnett College
,
Program Chairs:
Adrienne Decker
Rochester Institute of Technology
,
Kurt Eiselt
University of British Columbia

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Published: 05 March 2014

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SIGCSE '14: The 45th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

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Overall Acceptance Rate 1,595 of 4,542 submissions, 35%

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Newhall TWebb KChaganti VDanner A(2025)An Introductory-level Undergraduate CS Course that Introduces Parallel ComputingJournal of Parallel and Distributed Computing10.1016/j.jpdc.2025.105044(105044)Online publication date: Feb-2025
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpdc.2025.105044
Shoop EBrown RMatthews SAdams J(2024)Interactive Textbooks for Parallel and Distributed Computing Across the Undergraduate CS Curriculum2024 IEEE International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium Workshops (IPDPSW)10.1109/IPDPSW63119.2024.00085(377-384)Online publication date: 27-May-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/IPDPSW63119.2024.00085
Brown DGhafoor SRogers MHaynes A(2023)Faculty Development Workshops for Integrating PDC in Early Undergraduate Curricula: An Experience ReportProceedings of the SC '23 Workshops of The International Conference on High Performance Computing, Network, Storage, and Analysis10.1145/3624062.3624097(314-323)Online publication date: 12-Nov-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3624062.3624097
Dewan PWorley AGeorge SYanaga FWortas AJuschuk JRogers MGhafoor S(2022)Hands-On, Instructor-Light, Checked and Tracked Training of Trainers in Java Fork-Join Abstractions2022 IEEE 29th International Conference on High Performance Computing, Data and Analytics Workshop (HiPCW)10.1109/HiPCW57629.2022.00009(28-35)Online publication date: Dec-2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/HiPCW57629.2022.00009
Frachtenberg E(2021)Experience and Practice Teaching an Undergraduate Course on Diverse Heterogeneous Architectures2021 IEEE/ACM Ninth Workshop on Education for High Performance Computing (EduHPC)10.1109/EduHPC54835.2021.00006(1-8)Online publication date: Nov-2021
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fuad MDeb D(2021)Using Real-World Problems to Explore and Improve Students' Understanding of Parallelism Concepts2021 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON)10.1109/EDUCON46332.2021.9453912(57-62)Online publication date: 21-Apr-2021
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Suo XGlebova OLiu DLazar ABein D(2021)A Survey of Teaching PDC Content in Undergraduate Curriculum2021 IEEE 11th Annual Computing and Communication Workshop and Conference (CCWC)10.1109/CCWC51732.2021.9376037(1306-1312)Online publication date: 27-Jan-2021
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Lewis MLacher L(2020)Teaching Modern Multithreading in CS2 with Actors2020 IEEE International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium Workshops (IPDPSW)10.1109/IPDPSW50202.2020.00061(292-299)Online publication date: May-2020
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Liu BXie F(2020)Investigating the Incorporation of Machine Learning Concepts in Data Structure Education2020 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)10.1109/FIE44824.2020.9274090(1-4)Online publication date: 21-Oct-2020
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Martins GLopes de Souza PJose Conte DBruschi S(2020)Learning Parallel Programming Through Programming Challenges2020 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)10.1109/FIE44824.2020.9274009(1-9)Online publication date: 21-Oct-2020
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Teaching shared memory parallel concepts with OpenMP (abstract only)

Teaching Parallel Computing Concepts with OpenMP (Abstract Only)

Teaching Parallel and Distributed Computing in the Time of COVID

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