CPATH-1: Revitalizing Computing Education through Computational Science

该计划旨在通过发展针对理工科本科专业的计算科学辅修课程来振兴本科计算机教育。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。现代复杂的科学和工程应用需要高性能的计算解决方案，科学家和工程师需要计算思维能力来实现这样的解决方案。该项目在课程的早期介绍了并发、并行和分布式计算的概念、技术和模式。随着商用级多核处理器的出现，以及摩尔定律的延长，理解这些主题已经成为一个重要的学习成果。因此，这个项目的总体效果将是教授计算思维能力、现代软件设计方法、高性能计算和科学计算，以满足广大学习者的迫切需要。通过对非计算机科学专业的课程进行革新，计算机科学专业也将受益匪浅，因为并发、并行和分布式计算方法将比通常遇到的方法更早地融入到课程中。计算机科学课程也将通过引入对计算感兴趣的科学和工程中的真实例子而重新焕发活力。科学和工程的人口统计学与传统的计算机科学有很大的不同，计算领域中代表性不足的群体将会大量接触到计算思维和计算的核心思想。计算技术在各种学科中的传播也将改变计算思维和计算在核心计算机科学学科中的感知和教学方式。贯穿项目所有阶段的严格评估计划将定量地衡量拟议的计算科学辅修课程在为本科生准备科学计算方面的变化，从而更有可能被其他机构采用或采用。通过提高范德比尔特大学和其他地方的科学家和工程师的计算技能，该项目将在改善美国科学教育方面产生更广泛的影响，使学生为就业和高级研究生培训做好更充分的准备。

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.