Modules in community: injecting more parallelism into computer science curricula

Abstract

Given the recent emergence of multi-core and distributed computing that is transforming mainstream application areas in industry, demand is rising for teaching more parallelism and concurrency in CS curricula. We argue for teaching these topics incrementally in CS courses at all undergraduate levels, and propose a comprehensive approach involving flexible teaching modules with experiential programming exercises, technical and instructor supplementary materials, and an online community of educators to support adopters and module contributors. Progress on developing these materials and online resources is reported.