Patternlets: A Teaching Tool for Introducing Students to Parallel Design Patterns

Thanks to the ubiquity of multicore processors, today´s CS students must be introduced to parallel computing or they will be ill prepared as modern software developers. Professional developers of parallel software think in terms of parallel design patterns, which are markedly different from traditional (sequential) design patterns. It follows that the more we can teach students to think in terms of parallel patterns, the more their thinking will resemble that of parallel software professionals. In this paper, we present pattern lets - minimalist, scalable programs, each designed to introduce students to a particular parallel design pattern. The collection currently includes 33 MPI, Open MP, and Pthreads programs. We present assessment data that indicate the use of pattern lets in CS2 improved student mastery of parallel concepts.