We report on the results of a year-long intervention aimed at introducing parallel and distributed computing (PDC) concepts in introductory computing courses. In contrast to other efforts, our approach uses “codeless” modules that incorporate visualizations, simulations, and demonstrations, all of which do not require a programming background, making them accessible to novice computing students. To measure the effectiveness of our strategy, we designed and administered a pre/posttest to an intervention group (𝑛2 = 75) and compared it with a control group (𝑛1 = 87). A suite of nonparametric tests demonstrate that our codeless modules have a substantial positive effect on teaching PDC concepts to introductory computing students.

Sat 21 Feb

Displayed time zone: Central Time (US & Canada) change

10:40 - 12:00
Codeless Computing: Boolean Logic, Parallelism, and ML for Actual HumansPapers at Meeting Room 105
Chair(s): Mohsen Dorodchi University of North Carolina Charlotte
10:40
20m
Talk
A Code-Free, Direct-Manipulation Interface for Constructing Boolean ExpressionsGlobal
Papers
Andrin Gesser ETH Zürich, Sverrir Thorgeirsson ETH Zurich, April Wang ETH Zürich, Zhendong Su ETH Zurich
11:00
20m
Talk
Codeless Modules for Parallel and Distributed Computing in Early Computing Curriculum
Papers
Chris Bourke University of Nebraska-Lincoln
11:20
20m
Talk
Teaching Probabilistic Machine Learning in the Liberal Arts: Empowering Socially and Mathematically Informed AI Discourse
Papers
Yaniv Yacoby Wellesley College