An Educational Tool for Teaching and Learning Concurrent Computer Programming Techniques

用于教授和学习并行计算机编程技术的教育工具

• 批准号: 2215193
• 负责人: Tongping Liu
• 金额: $ 18万
• 依托单位: University of Massachusetts Amherst
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-07-01 至 2025-06-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2215193&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Educational; Tool; Teaching; Learning; Concurrent

This project aims to serve the national interest by improving student learning and instructor productivity in computing courses that teach concurrent programming. Modern computer applications require considerable computing power to produce results in a reasonable amount of time. Most programs can be broken up into constituent parts that can be executed at the same time or concurrently. Running program components concurrently can significantly reduce the running time of a program. Modern computer applications rely on concurrent execution to provide users with the level of performance they expect. Concurrent programming is challenging to teach effectively and is notoriously difficult to learn. There is a lack of effective debugging tools that allow students to analyze their code and to learn from their mistakes. The goal of this project is the development of an educational tool, called Evident, that will make it easier for instructors to teach concurrent programming and for students to develop the skills required to utilize concurrency in the programs that they develop. This project consists of three phases: (1) Developing a tool that supports backward/reverse debugging; (2) Developing visualizations for the execution order of concurrent programs; and (3) Studying the effectiveness of the resulting tool in a classroom setting. Research questions include: (1) Can replay-based debugging facilitate active learning? (2) Does visualization improve a student’s intuitive understanding of concurrency? (3) How do different visualization strategies affect a student’s ability to effectively utilize concurrency? and (4) Can visualization help teachers play a more active role in helping students understand concurrency? A three-phase evaluation will be conducted during the development process to ensure the useability of the tool. Qualitative feedback collected from students and instructors will be used to improve the design of tool. Formative assessments will be used to identify the most effective visualization practices. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该项目旨在通过提高学生的学习和教师在教授并发编程的计算课程中的生产力来服务于国家利益。现代计算机应用程序需要相当大的计算能力才能在合理的时间内产生结果。大多数程序可以被分解成可以同时或并发执行的组成部分。并发运行程序组件可以显著减少程序的运行时间。现代计算机应用程序依赖于并发执行来为用户提供他们期望的性能水平。并发编程很难有效地教授，并且众所周知很难学习。缺乏有效的调试工具，让学生分析他们的代码，并从错误中学习。该项目的目标是开发一个名为Evident的教育工具，这将使教师更容易教授并发编程，并使学生能够开发在他们开发的程序中利用并发所需的技能。该项目由三个阶段组成：（1）开发支持向后/反向调试的工具;（2）开发并发程序执行顺序的可视化;（3）研究所产生的工具在课堂环境中的有效性。研究问题包括：（1）基于重放的调试是否能促进主动学习？(2)可视化是否提高了学生对并发的直观理解？(3)不同的可视化策略如何影响学生有效利用并发的能力？（4）可视化能否帮助教师在帮助学生理解并发性方面发挥更积极的作用？在开发过程中将进行三阶段评价，以确保该工具的可用性。从学生和教师那里收集的定性反馈将用于改进工具的设计。形成性评估将用于确定最有效的可视化实践。NSF IUSE：EHR计划支持研究和开发项目，以提高所有学生STEM教育的有效性。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

项目成果

Open-ended Knowledge Tracing for Computer Science Education

• DOI: 10.18653/v1/2022.emnlp-main.254
• 发表时间: 2022
• 作者: Naiming Liu;Zichao Wang