research-article

Minimum Time, Maximum Effect: Introducing Parallel Computing in CS0 and STEM Outreach Activities Using Scratch

Authors:

Russell Feldhausen,

Daniel AndresenAuthors Info & Claims

XSEDE '14: Proceedings of the 2014 Annual Conference on Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment

Article No.: 75, Pages 1 - 7

https://doi.org/10.1145/2616498.2616568

Published: 13 July 2014 Publication History

Abstract

This paper presents our experiences and outcomes using Scratch to teach parallel computing concepts to students just learning about computer science. We presented versions of this material to middle school and high school girls during a STEM workshop and then to undergraduate university students enrolled in an introductory computer science course. Using the Scratch development environment, students are able to build, modify and observe the changes in the performance of applications which utilize multi-threaded, concurrent, operations. This includes scenarios which involve more advanced topics such as race conditions and mutex locks.

Developing these materials has allowed us to introduce these concepts in a programming environment much earlier than we have previously, giving instructors in down-stream courses the ability to build upon this early exposure. Survey results show that this approach resulted in a significant increase in both of these areas. For example, the number of students in our CS0 course who felt they could apply parallel programming to other problems using Scratch more than doubled, rising from 25 to 55 (out of 61 students that responded to both surveys). Likewise, the number of students who felt they understood what parallel programming means rose from 27 to 56. These results were achieved after just one class period. Similarly, 27 of the 37 girls responding to the workshop survey felt that they were capable of learning to write computer programs and 22 of 41 indicated they had an interest in a job using HPC to solve problems.

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Cited By

Newhall TWebb KChaganti VDanner A(2025)An Introductory-level Undergraduate CS Course that Introduces Parallel ComputingJournal of Parallel and Distributed Computing10.1016/j.jpdc.2025.105044(105044)Online publication date: Feb-2025
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpdc.2025.105044
Brođanac PNovak JBoljat I(2021)Has the time come to teach parallel programming to secondary school students?Heliyon10.1016/j.heliyon.2021.e08662(e08662)Online publication date: Dec-2021
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2021.e08662
Conte Dde Souza PMartins GBruschi S(2020)Teaching Parallel Programming for Beginners in Computer Science2020 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)10.1109/FIE44824.2020.9274155(1-9)Online publication date: 21-Oct-2020
https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE44824.2020.9274155
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Minimum Time, Maximum Effect: Introducing Parallel Computing in CS0 and STEM Outreach Activities Using Scratch
1. Applied computing
  1. Education
  2. Enterprise computing
2. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing education
      1. Computing education programs
        Computer science education

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COMPUTING MAY BE USED in any or all of the following areas within an educational institution: instruction, research, and educational administration. The first two areas involve faculty, students, and researchers. The latter involves the educational ...

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cover image ACM Other conferences

XSEDE '14: Proceedings of the 2014 Annual Conference on Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment

July 2014

445 pages

ISBN:9781450328937

DOI:10.1145/2616498

General Chair:
Scott Lathrop
National Center for Supercomputing Applications
,
Program Chair:
Jay Alameda
National Center for Supercomputing Applications

Copyright © 2014 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

In-Cooperation

NSF: National Science Foundation
Drexel University
Indiana University: Indiana University

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 13 July 2014

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XSEDE '14

XSEDE '14: Annual Conference of the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment

July 13 - 18, 2014

GA, Atlanta, USA

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XSEDE '14 Paper Acceptance Rate 80 of 120 submissions, 67%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 129 of 190 submissions, 68%

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Cited By

Newhall TWebb KChaganti VDanner A(2025)An Introductory-level Undergraduate CS Course that Introduces Parallel ComputingJournal of Parallel and Distributed Computing10.1016/j.jpdc.2025.105044(105044)Online publication date: Feb-2025
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpdc.2025.105044
Brođanac PNovak JBoljat I(2021)Has the time come to teach parallel programming to secondary school students?Heliyon10.1016/j.heliyon.2021.e08662(e08662)Online publication date: Dec-2021
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2021.e08662
Conte Dde Souza PMartins GBruschi S(2020)Teaching Parallel Programming for Beginners in Computer Science2020 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)10.1109/FIE44824.2020.9274155(1-9)Online publication date: 21-Oct-2020
https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE44824.2020.9274155
de Jesus Oliveira Duraes TSergio Lopes de Souza PMartins GJose Conte DGarcia Bachiega NMazzini Bruschi S(2020)Research on Parallel Computing Teaching: state of the art and future directions2020 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)10.1109/FIE44824.2020.9273914(1-9)Online publication date: 21-Oct-2020
https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE44824.2020.9273914
Slaviero CHaeusler E(2015)Exploring concurrency on computational thinking toolsProceedings of the 14th Brazilian Symposium on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3148456.3148484(1-10)Online publication date: 3-Nov-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3148456.3148484

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