ACt-PBL: An Adaptive Approach to Teach Multi-core Computing in University Education

This paper presents an Active Collaborative PBLbased teaching methodology (ACt-PBL), for reinforcing teaching and learning of multi-core computing in the university education. This approach complements traditional classroom teaching strategy by incorporating live project demonstrations on multi-core, hands on training on parallel programming, practical code dependency analysis task, think pair-share activity and open discussions on research issues in multi-core computing. Survey results show that 69% (approx.) of the students who attended the ACt-PBL lecture perceived that the lecture method encouraged them to think reflectively on the topic compared to only 36% of students from the traditional lecture. Analysis of assessment results show that the ACt-PBL methodology, being easily adaptable to the students' individual needs, has reduced the failure rate of students by approximately 50% vis-à-vis the traditional method. Using this method, a statistically significant (p=0.006) better learning outcome was obtained for freshmen when compared to their counterparts in the traditional lecture class. In contrast this method did not make any significant difference for the sophomores (p=0.74), who had higher prior knowledge than freshmen.