This CPATH project builds a community involved in integrating concurrency and parallelism topics throughout the undergraduate computing curriculum starting in the first year. This is achieved by emphasizing the spatial concurrency inherent in hardware and having students consider designs with parallelism. After the introductory courses, follow-on courses will be adapted to include fundamental concepts of parallelism wherever applicable. It includes the development of educational tools to assist students in designing parallel programs and the dissemination of materials to broader communities. A group of possible adoptors including major research institutions in the mid-west participates in workshops and other community activities during the three years of funding.
The intellectual merit of the project lies in the importance and currency of the topic and clear need for such changes in computing education to prepare the upcoming generation of computing professionals. The project team includes researchers with significant expertise in both the computing discipline research that underlies the implementation and in educational innovation. The project has the potential for national impact and to provide new models for computing education of the future.
The broader impacts of the project lie in the potential to address changing demands on computing professionals and to attract a diverse audience of students. The chief impacts lie in the sound evaluation that should demonstrate the effectiveness of the model and support the dissemination on a national level. The project has the potential to provide a research-based national resource that revitalizes the preparation of undergraduates for software development professional careers.
