Initial Publication Date: July 16, 2014

SC13 Curriculum Workshop:

Mapping CS2013 and NSF/TCPP parallel and distributed computing recommendations and resources to courses

Sunday 1:30-5:00pm, Rooms 708/710/712, November 17, 2013

Dick Brown, St. Olaf College; Joel Adams, Calvin College; Libby Shoop, Macalester College

Abstract

The ACM/IEEE CS Curriculum 2013 report is expected to be available by the time of the SC13 conference. The IEEE/TCPP Curriculum Initiative on Parallel and Distributed Computing (PDC) is also available. In both of these documents, PDC moves from being an elective into the core CS curriculum, meaning all CS students now need to learn about it. In this workshop, we will (i) provide an overview of the PDC topics that should now be in every CS department's core curriculum, (ii) explore different curricular approaches to covering these topics, (iii) present existing pedagogical and computational resources to aid CS educators in adding coverage of PDC to the core CS curriculum, and (iv) provide time for participants to brainstorm, discuss, and plan how they will incorporate these PDC topics into the core CS curriculum at their home institutions.

Part 1: Mapping curriculum recommendations to courses (1:30-3pm)

  • Introduction to this part (5 min)

    • Worksheet for Parallel Curriculum Workshop - SC13 
      PDF (Acrobat (PDF) 117kB Nov6 13) DOCX (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 6kB Nov6 13) Google doc (make a copy to edit)
    • Piazza site for this curriculum workshop
      Piazza is a no-cost online forum service that is ordinarily used to support a specific course offering at an institution, in which faculty and students can post and respond to information and questions of interest in that course. This "piazza group" site is dedicated for interactive use by HPC Educators participants during and after this curriculum workshop.
  • Brief comments -- Sushil Prasad, Coordinator, NSF/IEEE-TCPP Curriculum Initiative on Parallel and Distributed Computing (5 min)
  • PDC in the CS2013 curricular recommendations (15 min)

  • Approaches to integrating PDC into undergraduate courses (10 min)
     
  • NSF/TCPP curricular recommendations (10 min)

    • NSF/IEEE-TCPP PDC Curriculum v1.0
    • NSF/TCPP PDC curricular recommendations - summary
      PDF (Acrobat (PDF) 91kB Jul25 14) XLSX (Excel 2007 (.xlsx) 36kB Jul25 14) Google doc (make a copy to edit)
    • NSF/TCPP PDC curricular recommendations - extended
      PDF (Acrobat (PDF) 164kB Nov18 13) XLSX (Excel 2007 (.xlsx) 60kB Nov18 13) Google doc (make a copy to edit)
    • Mapping from NSF/TCPP recommendations to CS2013 recommendations (provided by NSF/TCPP Working Group)
      Algorithms (Excel 2007 (.xlsx) 524kB Nov16 13) Architecture (Excel 2007 (.xlsx) 84kB Nov16 13) Programming (Excel 2007 (.xlsx) 82kB Nov16 13) Cross Cutting (Excel 2007 (.xlsx) 76kB Nov16 13)
  • Brief survey for Part 1 (5 min)
     
  • Breakout groups. Suggested group themes will be based on survey (25 min)
    • Note takers: use your group's page on 
      SC13 HPC Educators curriculum workshop proceedings ( Shared google folder -- collaboratively edited!)
      Alternatives: Piazza site (start a new note) or Word document (email to rab@stolaf.edu)
    • Participants may freely choose among suggested themes, including "No theme" groups
       
  • Report out (15 min)
     

Break (3-3:30 pm)

Part 2: Mapping resources to curriculum changes (3:30-5 pm)

  • Introduction to this part (5 min)
  • Overview of curricular material resources available for adding PDC to curriculum (15 min)
    • Some examples:
    • Additional examples (Please contribute):
  • Overview of computational platform resources available for supporting PDC in the curriculum (15 min)
    • Some examples:
    • Additional examples (Please contribute):
  • Brief survey for Part 2 (5 min)
     
  • Breakout groups. Suggested group themes will be based on survey (25 min)
    • Note takers: use your group's page on 
      SC13 HPC Educators curriculum workshop proceedings ( Shared google folder -- collaboratively edited!)
      Alternatives: Piazza site (start a new note) or Word document (email to rab@stolaf.edu)
    • Participants may freely choose among suggested themes, including "No theme" groups
       
  • Report out (15 min)
     
  • Brief announcements of upcoming sessions related to curriculum (10 min)