Presentation
Hands-on Learning: Teaching Parallel and Distributed Computing through Unplugged Activities in Undergraduate CS Courses
DescriptionThe authors present and evaluate an unplugged activity to introduce parallel computing concepts to undergraduate students. Students in five CS classrooms used a deck of playing cards in small groups to consider how parallelization can improve performance and how improvement decreases with increased parallelization. Before and after the activity, students took a short survey about their solution and their ideas about parallelism. The authors carried out this activity in seven courses at five institutions in the 2023-2024 academic year. The results showed that students had an increased appreciation for parallelization and this type of activity.