EAGER: Collaborative Research: Developing a Parallel and Distributed Computing Concepts Curriculum Enhancement for the Computer Science Principles Course

该项目正在启动计算机科学原理（CS0）课程的并行和分布式计算（PDC）课程增强设计，该课程也适用于相应的高中先修课程（AP）课程。 现代计算系统通常采用高水平的并行性（例如，多核、图形处理器）和分布式计算（例如，云服务）。 PDC 极大地影响着日常生活，其在解决有意义的社会问题方面的重要性可以激发学生对在 STEM 及其他领域应用计算产生更浓厚的兴趣。然而，大多数 CS0 课程主要建立在较旧的顺序计算模型上。 CS0 具有面向众多受众的多种目的，现在被视为提高学生（尤其是代表性不足的群体）对深入学习计算或主修计算机科学的兴趣的工具。因此，创建新的 AP 考试以及相关的高中课程一直是努力的主题。由于 AP 考试仍处于试点阶段，因此有一个短暂的窗口来修改课程以反映 21 世纪的计算。 AP 课程潜在的巨大影响可能会很快让学生在旧的顺序范式下进行教育，形成一种难以改变的惰性。这项合作正在通过收集专家意见并让必要的利益相关者参与来制定 CS0 和 AP 课程的 PDC 课程指南，以确保开发和采用适当的课程。目标是让学生了解现代计算技术的实际运作方式，而不是教授过时的操作模型。这项工作遵循的流程类似于提案者先前为本科课程设计 PDC 指南而取得的巨大成功，该指南已纳入 ACM 标准课程。该方法首先对 CS0 中涵盖 PDC 主题的实践状况进行彻底调查。调查结束后，将举办由专家和利益相关者参加的研讨会，以借鉴他们的知识和经验。然后成立一个专门的指导委员会，为研究人员提供课程设计方面的建议，并帮助他们确定实现课程成果的方法。这项工作旨在尽可能广泛地传播研究结果，以产生最大的影响。广泛影响是这项工作的核心，旨在扩大许多不同学科和高中学生对 PDC 基础重要概念的认识和理解。让更多的学生能够更容易地接触到这些有趣和令人兴奋的主题，应该会激发人们对计算机科学的研究以及并发计算在科学、工程和商业中的应用产生更深的兴趣。通过为下一代从业者和研究人员提供必要的技能和知识来定期认识 PDC 概念的应用方式和地点，推进 PDC 教育进一步促进科学和工程的进步，而科学和工程越来越依赖于高性能计算。

This project is initiating design of a Parallel and Distributed Computing (PDC) curriculum enhancement for the Computer Science Principles (CS0) course that is also applicable to the corresponding high school advanced placement (AP) course. Modern computing systems routinely employ high levels of parallelism (e.g., multiple cores, graphics processors) and distributed computing (e.g., cloud services). PDC significantly affects daily lives, and its importance in solving meaningful societal problems can inspire students to take a deeper interest in applying computing in STEM fields and beyond. However, most CS0 curricula are founded predominantly on older, sequential models of computing. CS0 has multiple purposes that address many audiences, and is now seen as a vehicle for increasing interest among students, especially from underrepresented groups, for studying computing in depth or to major in computer science. It has thus been the subject of an effort to create a new AP exam, with associated high school courses. Since the AP exam is still in a pilot phase, there is a brief window for amending the curriculum to reflect 21st century computing. The potentially vast impact of the AP course could quickly settle into educating students under the old sequential paradigm, acquiring an inertia that makes it difficult to change. This collaborative effort is developing PDC curriculum guidelines for CS0 and AP courses through gathering expert input and involving necessary stakeholders to ensure that an appropriate curriculum is developed and adopted. The goal is for students to gain an understanding of how modern computing technology actually functions, rather than being taught an obsolete operational model. The effort is following a process similar to the proposers' highly successful prior effort to design a PDC guideline for undergraduate curricula, which was incorporated into the ACM standard curriculum. The approach begins with a thorough survey of the state of practice in covering PDC topics in CS0. The survey is followed by a workshop attended by experts and stakeholders to draw upon their knowledge and experience. Then a select steering committee is formed that advises the investigators on the design of a curriculum and helps them identify means to bring it to fruition. The effort seeks the broadest possible dissemination of the results to have the greatest possible impact.Broad impact is the core of this effort, which seeks to expand awareness and appreciation of the important concepts at the foundation of PDC, to students in many different disciplines and in high school. Making these interesting and exciting topics more accessible to a wider range of students should generate deeper interest in the study of computer science and the application of concurrent computation in science, engineering, and commerce. Advancing PDC education further enables advances in science and engineering, which depend ever more on high performance computing, by providing the next generation of practitioners and researchers with the necessary skills and knowledge to routinely recognize how and where PDC concepts may be applied.