Abstract:

After two successful years of in-person workshops designed to educate users about supercomputing basics, techniques for scaling code from the desktop to the supercomputer and best practices for using a supercomputer, the Covid19 pandemic forced the redesign of a three day, in-person workshop into a virtual experience. These workshops are held annually in January, providing ample time to convert the 2021 workshop into an entirely virtual learning experience. The expectation for 2022 was a return to in-person workshops but the rise of the Omicron variant necessitated a rapid shift from the in-person design to a fully virtual course. While many of the challenges associated with the conversion were shared between the two course designs, there were some key differences that lead to a broader set of lessons learned and best practices.

The first time the course was offered it was a two-day workshop. The workshop included a number of shared, hands-on, activities designed to promote an intuitive understanding of High Performance Computing (HPC) concepts. These activities included educational games created by the instructors to abstract the HPC concepts from the implementation details in order to create deeper understanding. The games used physical components to provide a tangible connection to the team and activity. For the second year of the course, minor modifications were made to the format and activities. The format was altered to add an additional half day session to discuss student projects, while the games were streamlined to improve game flow and more clearly highlight the key concepts.

In late 2020, the Covid19 pandemic forced a complete refactoring and the January 2021 course was offered in a blended mode with asynchronous online content and live virtual sessions. Using best practices, the lectures were converted to targeted, concept specific videos with knowledge checks interleaved between them to provide immediate feedback and reinforce learning. The schedule was adjusted to avoid Zoom fatigue while retaining time for hands-on activities and student presentations that described their projects and proposed scaling method. Modifying these course components was fairly straight-forward compared to the changes required to successfully incorporate the games used in previous years. In one case the game was not suitable for use in the virtual environment and a substitute was used. The second game was adapted to the zoom environment. In 2022, the Omicron variant required a rapid shift from a planned in-person course to a fully remote course. Drawing from the lessons learned from the 2021 course, the games and course flow were further modified to create a more fluid remote learning experience.

This paper explores the process of converting a primarily informal workshop course from face-to-face format to a hybrid learning experience with a focus on the modifications required to create successful hands-on activities for remote learning. The paper concludes with a discussion of the lessons that were learned and the best practices that were drawn from those lessons.

Keywords:

Active Learning, High Performance Computing, Gamification, Supercomputing, Remote Learning, Game Based Learning, Informal learning.