Cyber Training Project and Summer Workshop

Introductory computing courses in the U.S. are based on a conceptual model of computation predating the distribution of computing across the Internet and widespread use of parallel processing. Employer stakeholders reported that new graduates are ill-prepared for working with modern systems so that it can take up to two years of additional training before they become productive employees. A key impediment to modernization that academic stakeholders identified was the lack of example introductory course sequences to adopt. This project will begin to remedy that situation by pioneering a new set of introductory computing courses, built around a modern conceptual model of computation that includes parallel and distributed processing, with rigorous evaluation of their effectiveness and their adoptability across a diverse group of colleges and universities. In addition, the project will better prepare and motivate the future research workforce to leverage advanced cyberinfrastructure by strengthening their foundational understanding of modern computing systems and computational problem solving methods. Modern systems that are geared toward supporting big data, artificial intelligence, large scale simulations, cloud computing, etc., are the foundation of current research paradigms. The project serves the national interest by training a well-prepared and diverse workforce that is better able to compete globally, exploit, and meet the challenges presented by all of these aspects of the pervasive, modern, cyber-technology environment.

Workshop for Testing & Development Teams 

July 7-11, 2026

UMASS, Amherst

Workshop Agenda

Day 1: Tuesday, July 7

Focus: CS1

Plenary Joint Session

8:30 – 9:00 am

Welcome (Neena & Chip) – 10 min

Project Timeline & Goals (Sushil) – 20 min

  • Project timeline, Goals of this week’s workshop

9:00-10:15 am

CS1 Presentation, Data, & Walkthrough by TNTECH (April)

  • Present summary of CS1 material developed & provide lecture videos
  • Challenges faced & how they were overcome 
  • Review updates / changes in CS1 materials since last summer
  • CS1 Benchmark & Intervention Data

Break

10:15-10:45 am

Break – tea/coffee

Plenary Joint Session

10:45-12:00 pm

CS1 Presentation, Data, & Walkthrough by KNOX (Jaime or David)

  • Present summary of CS1 material developed & provide lecture videos
  • Challenges faced & how they were overcome
  • Review updates / changes in CS1 materials since last summer.
  • CS1 Benchmark & Intervention Data

Lunch

12:00-1:30 pm

Lunch (on own)

Plenary Joint Session

1:30- 2:00 pm

Testing Team CS1 Retrospective 

  • Discuss results of testing teams going through CS1 materials and what parts were difficult

Work Session

2:00 – 3:00 pm

Testing Teams work on CS1 Course

  • Organize CS1 Course with assistance from Development teams –  work on changes you are going to make in your Fall 2025 CS1 course. 
  • Create outline/summary of changes and schedule of topics in your plan for CS1

Break or Optional Tour

3:00 – 3:45 pm

Break and/or Tour of New Building

Work Session

3:45 – 5:00 pm

Testing Teams work on CS1 Course

  • Organize CS1 Course with assistance from Development teams –  work on changes you are going to make in your Fall 2025 CS1 course. 
  • Create outline/summary of changes and schedule of topics in your plan for CS1
Day 2: Wednesday, July 8

Focus: CS2

Plenary Joint Session

8:30 – 9:45 am

Testing Teams Present CS1 Updates

  • Outline/summary of changes 
  • Schedule of topics in your plan for CS1 
  • Questions, Discussion & Feedback on CS1 developed material. What is still muddy?

Break

9:45 – 10:15 am

Break – tea/coffee

Plenary Joint Session

10:15-12:00 pm

CS2 Presentation, Data, & Walkthrough by TNTECH (April)

  • Present summary of CS2 materials created and used in Spring 2025 
  • challenges faced / feedback received from TAs & students, planned changes for Fall 2025 semester
  • CS2 Benchmark & Intervention Data

Lunch

12:00-1:30 pm

Lunch (on own)

Plenary Joint Session

1:30- 3:15 pm

CS2 Presentation, Data, & Walkthrough by KNOX (David)

  • Present summary of CS2 materials created and used in Winter 2025 and Spring 2025
  • challenges faced / feedback received from TAs & students, planned changes for Winter/Spring semester
  • CS2 Benchmark & Intervention Data

Break

3:15 – 3:45 pm

Break – tea/coffee

Work Session

3:45 – 5:00 pm

Testing Teams work on CS2 Course

  • Organize CS2 Course with assistance from Development teams –  work on changes you are going to make in your CS2 course. 
  • Create outline/summary of changes and schedule of topics in your plan for CS2

Dinner

6:30 pm

Dinner Together at Johnny’s Tavern 30 Boltwood Walk, Amherst, MA 01002 – Reservation under Chip

Day 3: Thursday, July 9

Focus: Future Planning & Misc.

Plenary Joint Session

8:30 – 9:45 am

Testing Teams Present CS2 Updates

  • Outline/summary of changes 
  • Schedule of topics in your plan for CS2 

Questions, discussion & feedback on CS2 developed material – what is still muddy?

Break

9:45 – 10:00 am

Break – tea/coffee

Plenary Joint Session

10:00 – 10:45 am

CDER Project Evaluation by Neena

  • Project evaluation and discussion on data & evaluation ideas she learned at a workshop.

10:45 – 12:15 pm

Future Planning: Action Plan for Poster, Publications, Workshops, Focus Groups, & Tutorials

  • Logistics paper on how we accomplished this multi institutional initiative, how we met, what was discussed, outcomes, goals, what was accomplished…
  • Teams/Team leads?
  • Action plan should contain goals, who will do what, and deadlines.
    • Plenary Joint Session

12:15 – 1:15 pm

Other Project Ideas (Show and Tell) – open to all teams

  • Michelle – Develop an Agentic Graph-RAG Student Learning System for PDC education
  • Srishti  -PDC bot for answering PDC-based questions
  • Michelle and Jiayin: Parallel Image Processing with thread pool student assignments to teach embarrassingly parallel and synchronized parallel 
  • Chris – Instrument development

HOMEWORK

Data Review & Feedback (All Teams)

  • Review other team’s reports and share feedback, inferences made, and recommendations you have for their data.
Day 4: Friday, July 10

Focus: Programming Activities & Material Dissemination

Lederle Research Center – Room A215 

Joint Session (Java Greenfoot Presentation)

8:30 – 9:45 am

Jaime – work through using Greenfoot

  • Jaime’s TicTacToeServer folder
  • R/place
  • Book found online

Break

9:45 – 10:15 am

Break – tea/coffee

Parallel Sessions (Java / C++)

10:15 – 12:00 pm

Development Team – present and work through CS1 Materials with Testing Teams

  • CS1 class – C++ – April –

Lunch

12:00 – 1:30 pm

Lunch (on own)

Parallel Sessions (Java / C++)

1:30 – 3:00 pm

Development Team – present and work through CS1/CS2 Materials with Testing Teams

  • Review relevant Module 8 slides/examples, openmp lecture slide/example, do Lab 9

Break

3:00 – 3:15 pm

Break – tea/coffee

Plenary Joint Session

3:15 – 4:00 pm

Report out / Discussion on the parallel sessions

4:00 – 5:00 pm

Repository / Material Dissemination

  • Create an action plan for repository / material dissemination from dev & testing teams.
    • Online project website openly available except for solutions? – then a google doc or form of some kind to get the solutions?
    • How to do version control?
    • Discuss how to redo the CDER courseware website
    • Action plan should contain goals, who will do what, and deadlines
  • Examples we are looking at:
Day 5: Saturday, July 11

Focus: Calendar, Future Plans

Plenary Joint Session

8:30 – 9:45 am

  • Overall expectations for Fall 2025-Spring 2026
  • Work time on future plans & repository/material dissemination
  • Review action items for all team members
    • modules well packaged
    • working groups on publications/activities
  • Collaborate to set up meeting times (TESTING TEAM) for Fall 2025.
    • July-Dec biweekly starting Fridays, July 25, 3pm EDT/2pm CDT

Break

9:45 – 10:15 am

Break – tea/coffee

Plenary Joint Session

10:15 – 12:00 pm

  • SIGCSE 2026
  • Should the dev team meet every week still and if so what is the purpose of these meetings?
  • When should dev teams meet in Fall 2025 and how often?
  • Reflection & Discussion, etc.
    • There can be more discussion on hardware/concepts of PDC in addition to the program snippets