EXP: Learning Parallel Programming Concepts Through an Adaptive Game

网络学习和未来学习技术计划资助的努力将有助于设想下一代学习技术，并推进我们对人们如何在技术丰富的环境中学习的了解。网络学习探索（EXP）项目通过设计和构建新型学习技术，研究其促进学习的可能性和有效使用它们的挑战，探索新型学习技术的可行性。这个特别的项目将开发适合用户技能水平的教育游戏，并将研究如何使用它们来教授计算机编程的概念。现代计算越来越多地以并行方式处理，尽管关于如何教授并行编程的工作越来越多，但对这一主题的学习了解甚少。该项目将揭示学习并行编程的挑战，并收集有关在大学课程中构建并行编程的方法的初始数据。我们建议开发一种类型的自适应学习游戏，在其中我们将收集专家和新手如何解决并行编程问题的数据，并研究支架学习的方法。我们的研究将促进人们如何学习与并行编程相关的概念的理解，以及调查哪些活动增强了这一领域的学习过程。我们将通过名为程序内容生成的方法生成针对特定学生的内容。这项工作将改变本科计算机科学课程从顺序编程到并行编程的过渡，并推进个性化学习。我们将通过CSinParallel网络传播我们的原型和结果，CSinParallel网络是一个由NSF资助的国家组织，致力于将并发，并行和分布式计算概念引入更大比例的计算机科学课程。这项研究将进一步加深我们对学生如何学习并行编程概念的理解，并有助于培养一支有竞争力的劳动力队伍，为当今的并行计算世界做好更好的准备。

The Cyberlearning and Future Learning Technologies Program funds efforts that will help envision the next generation of learning technologies and advance what we know about how people learn in technology-rich environments. Cyberlearning Exploration (EXP) Projects explore the viability of new kinds of learning technologies by designing and building new kinds of learning technologies and studying their possibilities for fostering learning and challenges to using them effectively. This particular project will develop educational games that adapt to the skill level of the user and will conduct research on using them to teach concepts from computer programming. Modern computing is increasingly handled in a parallel fashion and despite the growing body of work on how to teach parallel programming, little is understood about the learning of this subject. This project will shed light on the challenge of learning parallel programming and gather initial data on ways to scaffold it in college-level courses. We propose to develop a genre of adaptive learning games in which we will gather data on how experts and novices address parallel programming problems and study ways to scaffold learning. Our research will advance understandings of how people learn concepts associated with parallel programming, as well as investigating which activities enhance the learning process in this domain. We will generate content tailored to specific students through a method entitled procedural content generation. This work will transform the transition from sequential programming to parallel programming in undergraduate computer science curricula and advance personalized learning. We will disseminate our prototype and results via the CSinParallel network, an NSF-funded national organization that works to introduce concurrent, parallel, and distributed computing concepts into a greater percentage of computer science curricula. The research will further our understanding of how students learn parallel programming concepts and contribute to training a competitive workforce that is better prepared for today's parallel computing world.