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Introducing concurrent execution, forking, joining, synchronization, and load balancing of Java threads to trainees allows them to (a) create arbitrary concurrent algorithms, and (b) be exposed to the underpinnings of concurrency concepts. However, it requires the sacrifice of some existing concepts in the course in which such training is added. To keep this sacrifice low, we ambitiously explored if such concepts can be effectively introduced and tested in a single class period, which is approximately an hour, without a live lecture. Students were asked to learn the concurrency concepts by reading, running, fixing, and testing an existing concurrent program, and taking a quiz. They had varying knowledge of concurrency and Java threads but had not implemented concurrent Java programs. Both in-person and remote help were offered. They were allowed to finish their work after class, within a week. The vast majority of them who started on time finished the coding correctly and gave satisfactory quiz answers in ninety minutes. This experience suggests that such hands-on training can be usefully added to courses for training students and instructors that provide no other training in concurrency or training in declarative concepts. Our key ideas can be applied to languages other than Java.
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Hands-On, Instructor-Light, Checked and Tracked Training of Trainers in Java Fork-Join Abstractions
As part of a 3-day workshop on training faculty members in concurrency, we developed a module for hands-on training in Java Fork-Join abstractions that had several related novel pedagogical and technical components: (1) Source and runtime checks that (a) tested whether test-aware code created by the trainees met the expected requirements and (b) logged their results in the local file system and the IBM cloud. (2) Editable worked example code along with a guide on how to understand the underlying concepts behind the code and experiment with the code. (3) The ability to follow the guide (a) synchronously, with graduate student help, in a session devoted to this module, and (b) asynchronously, on one's own, before or after the synchronous session. (4) Assignments trainees could do after experimenting with the worked example. (5) Zoom recording of the entire synchronous session. Fourteen faculty members across the country attended the session and had varying amounts of knowledge of Java and automatic assessment. Data gathered from check logs and a Zoom recording, together with novel visualizations of them, provide information to evaluate our pedagogical model and differentiate the participants.
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- PAR ID:
- 10445718
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- 2022 IEEE 29th International Conference on High Performance Computing, Data and Analytics Workshop (HiPCW)
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 28 to 35
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- https://doi.org/10.1109/HiPCW57629.2022.00009
