EAGER: Collaborative Research: Democratizing the Teaching of Parallel Computing Concepts

美国竞争力委员会的一项研究报告称，97%的美国企业依靠高性能并行计算（HPC）的创新使用来保持其在全球经济中的竞争优势。此外，现代计算设备中无处不在的多核和多核处理器，从小型（嵌入式设备和手机）到中型（笔记本电脑和台式机）再到大型（数据中心和超级计算机），都要求计算机教育者为下一代计算机科学家做好适当的准备，使他们能够以并行的方式推理解决问题。不幸的是，公司哀叹缺乏熟悉并行计算概念的训练有素的劳动力，从而加剧了技术变革和全球化的问题，这可能使美国在世界经济中落后。为了解决这个缺点，这个项目扩展和改造了研究者现有的计算机科学（CS）课程，通过利用Scratch使并行计算概念的教学民主化，Scratch是一种教育编程语言，在向儿童教授计算方面非常有效，但缺乏明确的并行编程结构。Scratch提供了丰富的可视化环境，学生只需将预定义的组件拖拽到可视化编辑器中，就可以创建复杂的程序。这个项目通过抽象来增强Scratch，以实现显式的并行处理，并为评估和部署提供原型，以确保广泛的适用性，促进采用，并确保教育的有效性。用这样的并行编程抽象增强Scratch丰富了计算机科学课程，而不会强加与并行计算教学相关的认知开销和过载。这个项目在并行计算、软件工程和教育领域之间产生了独特的跨学科合作。更广泛的意义：本项目旨在使并行计算概念的教学民主化，从而塑造下一代计算机科学家的思想，以有效地实现利用显式并行处理的解决方案。这种教育干预有可能弥合使美国在世界经济中落后的技术差距。该项目直接影响到从中学到大学的学生，甚至是寻求再培训的专业人士。参与这项研究的学生接受并行计算、软件工程和教育方面的培训。向代表性不足的群体伸出援助之手，包括在本项目的主持下，继续努力招募和留住女性和代表性不足的少数民族学生从事研究和教育工作。

A study by the U.S. Council of Competitiveness reports that 97% of U.S. businesses rely on the innovative use of high-performance parallel computing (HPC) to maintain their competitive advantage in the global economy. Furthermore, the ubiquity of multi- and many-core processors in modern computing devices, ranging from the small (embedded devices and cell phones) to the medium (laptops and desktops) to the large (data centers and supercomputers), requires that computing educators properly prepare the next generation of computer scientists to reason about problem solving in a parallel way. Unfortunately, companies lament the dearth of a trained workforce that is familiar with parallel computing concepts, thus exacerbating the problem of the technological change and globalization that is potentially leaving the U.S. behind in the world economy. To address this shortcoming, this project extends and transforms the investigators' existing computer science (CS) curriculum to democratize the teaching of parallel computing concepts by leveraging Scratch, an educational programming language shown to be highly effective in teaching computing to children but lacking in explicit parallel programming constructs. Providing a rich visual environment, Scratch enables students to create sophisticated programs just by dragging predefined components into a visual editor. This project enhances Scratch with abstractions for explicit parallel processing with a prototype for evaluation and deployment to ensure broad applicability, facilitate adoption, and assure educational effectiveness. Enhancing Scratch with such parallel programming abstractions enriches the computer science curriculum, without imposing the cognitive overhead and overload typically associated with teaching parallel computing. This project engenders a unique cross-disciplinary collaboration between the fields of parallel computing, software engineering, and education.Broader Significance: This project aims at democratizing the teaching of parallel computing concepts, thus molding the minds of the next generation of computer scientists to effectively realize solutions that take advantage of explicit parallel processing. This educational intervention has the potential to bridge the technological gap that is leaving the U.S. behind in the world economy. The project directly impacts students from middle school to college and even professionals seeking re-training. Students involved in this research receive training in parallel computing, software engineering, and education. Outreach to underrepresented groups includes the continuation of the PIs's efforts in recruiting and retaining female and underrepresented minority students in research and education under the auspices of this project.