skip to main content
10.1145/364447.364589acmconferencesArticle/Chapter ViewAbstractPublication PagessigcseConference Proceedingsconference-collections
Article

Making parallel programming accessible to inexperienced programmers through cooperative learning

Authors Info & Claims
Published:01 February 2001Publication History

ABSTRACT

This paper describes how we utilized cooperative learning to meet the practical challenges of teaching parallel programming in the early college years, as well as to provide a more real world context to the course. Our main contribution is a set of cooperative group activities for both inside and outside the classroom, which are targeted to the computer science discipline, have received very positive student feedback, are easy to implement, and achieve a number of learning objectives beyond knowledge of the specific topic. These activities can be applied directly or be easily adapted to other computer science courses, particularly programming, systems, and experimental computer science courses.

References

  1. 1.Bonwell, C. C., and Eison, J. A. Active Learning: Creating Excitement in the Classroom. ASHE ERIC Higher Education Report No. 1 (1991).Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  2. 2.Chase, J. D., and Okie, E. G. Combining Cooperative Learning and Peer Instruction in Introductory Computer Science. Proceedings of ACM SIGCSE (2000). Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  3. 3.Dougherty, R. C., Bowen, C. W., Berger, T., Rees, W., Mellon, E. K., and Pulliam, E. Cooperative Learning and Enhanced Communication: Effects on Student Performance. Journal of Chemical Education (1995).Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  4. 4.Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R. T., and Smith, K. A. Cooperative Learning: Increasing College Faculty Instructional Productivity. ASHE ERIC Higher Education Report No. 4 (1991).Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  5. 5.McConnell, J. J. Active and Group Learning and Their Use in Graphics Education. Computers and Graphics (1996).Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  6. 6.Message Passing Interface Forum. MPI: A messagepassing interface standard. International Journal of Supercomputer Applications 8, 3-4 (1994).Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  7. 7.Silberman, M. L. Active Learning: 101 Strategies to Teach Any Subject. Allyn and Bacon, 1996.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  8. 8.Tenenberg, J. Using Cooperative Learning in the Undergraduate Computer Science Classroom. Proceedings of the Midwest Small College Computing Conference (1995).Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  9. 9.Walker, H. M. Collaborative Learning: A Case Study for CS1 at Grinnell College and UT-Austin. Proceedings of ACM SIGCSE (1997). Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library

Index Terms

  1. Making parallel programming accessible to inexperienced programmers through cooperative learning

          Recommendations

          Comments

          Login options

          Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

          Sign in
          • Published in

            cover image ACM Conferences
            SIGCSE '01: Proceedings of the thirty-second SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer Science Education
            February 2001
            456 pages
            ISBN:1581133294
            DOI:10.1145/364447

            Copyright © 2001 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]

            Publisher

            Association for Computing Machinery

            New York, NY, United States

            Publication History

            • Published: 1 February 2001

            Permissions

            Request permissions about this article.

            Request Permissions

            Check for updates

            Qualifiers

            • Article

            Acceptance Rates

            SIGCSE '01 Paper Acceptance Rate78of225submissions,35%Overall Acceptance Rate1,595of4,542submissions,35%

            Upcoming Conference

            SIGCSE Virtual 2024
            SIGCSE Virtual 2024: ACM Virtual Global Computing Education Conference
            November 30 - December 1, 2024
            Virtual Event , USA

          PDF Format

          View or Download as a PDF file.

          PDF

          eReader

          View online with eReader.

          eReader