Abstract:

Programming classes are hard. My 11 years of experience in teaching programming courses shows only around 50% of the students initially started in Webster University Computer Science program can successfully pass programming 2 (CS1) with a B- or above and then move on to Data Structures. Beginner students lack problem-solving skills. This article is intended to show the result of introducing Parallel and Distributed Computing (PDC) thinking strategies using unplugged activities to my first and second-year undergraduate students, who are enrolled in computer programming courses.

Specifically, my research focuses on introducing PDC thinking strategies through unplugged activities, rather than traditional programming topics, early at a lower level, and study the effect of PDC thinking strategy assisting in promoting student’s engagement and improving student’s problem-solving skills.

There are several main goals in this research:
1. To demonstrate a set of unique unplugged activities used to assist students’ learning in the introduction of parallel and distributed computing (PDC) concepts to first and second-year computer science students.
2. To analyze the result after applying the teaching methodologies and assess the efficacy of this approach, compare with other existing teaching mechanisms.
3. To examine the relationship between PDC thinking/problem-solving strategies and improving the efficiency of solving a problem
4. To promote parallel algorithmic thinking strategies to all CS undergraduate students.

Keywords:

Parallelism, Teaching PDC, CS curriculum, Parallel and Distributed Computing, Active Learning.