CPATH-1: Revitalizing Computing Education through Computational Science

该计划旨在通过开发面向理工科本科专业的计算科学辅修课程来重振本科计算机教育。这些专业代表了一个广泛的学习者群体，对他们来说，计算是一个越来越重要的工具。高度复杂的现代科学和工程应用需要高性能的计算解决方案，而科学家和工程师需要计算思维能力来实现此类解决方案。该项目在课程开始时介绍了并发、并行和分布式计算的概念、技术和模式。由于延长摩尔定律的努力，商品级别的多核处理器的出现使理解这些主题成为一个关键的学习成果。因此，该项目的总体效果将是向迫切需要它们的广大学习者传授计算思维能力、现代软件设计方法、高性能计算和科学计算。通过针对非计算机专业进行课程改革，计算机科学专业的学生也将受益匪浅，因为并行、并行和分布式计算方法将比平时更早地融入到课程中。计算机科学课程也将通过引入具有计算兴趣的来自科学和工程的真实世界的例子来振兴。科学和工程的人口统计学与传统计算机科学有很大的不同，在计算中代表不足的群体将获得大量的计算思维和计算的核心思想。计算技术在不同学科中的传播也将改变核心计算机科学学科中对计算思维和计算的看法和教学方式。项目所有阶段的严格评估计划将定量衡量拟议的计算科学辅修专业本科生为科学计算做准备方面的变化，从而更有可能被其他机构采用或改编。通过提高范德比尔特和其他地方的科学家和工程师的计算技能，该项目将实现改善美国科学教育的更广泛影响，使学生为劳动力和高级研究生培训做好更好的准备。

This program aims to revitalize undergraduate computing education through the development of a computational science minor targeted to undergraduate majors in science and engineering. These majors represent a broad community of learners for whom computation is an increasingly critical tool. Modern scientific and engineering applications of significant complexity require high-performance computing solutions, and scientists and engineers require computational thinking competencies to achieve such solutions.The project introduces concurrent, parallel, and distributed computing concepts, techniques, and patterns early in the curriculum. The advent of multi-core processors at the commodity level, necessitated by the efforts to prolong Moore's law, have made understanding these topics a critical learning outcome. The overall effect of this project will thus be to teach computational thinking competencies, modern software design methods, high-performance computing, and scientific computing to a broad community of learners sorely in need of them. By renovating the curriculum with non-computer science majors in mind, computer science majors will also benefit significantly because concurrent, parallel, and distributed computational methods will be infused into the curriculum earlier than they are normally encountered. The computer science curriculum will also be revitalized by introducing real-world examples from science and engineering that have computational interest.The demographics of science and engineering are different enough from traditional computer science that underrepresented groups in computing will receive significant exposure to core ideas of computational thinking and computing. The diffusion of computational techniques throughout a variety of disciplines will also change the way computational thinking and computation are perceived and taught within the core computer science discipline. A rigorous evaluation plan throughout all phases of the project will measure quantitatively the changes in the preparation of undergraduates for scientific computing by the proposed computational sciences minor, leading to a greater likelihood of being adopted or adapted by other institutions. By improving the computational skills of scientists and engineers, at Vanderbilt and elsewhere, the project will achieve the broader impact of improving science education in the United States, making students far better prepared for the work force and advanced graduate training.