2015 Workshops

This workshop will cover various ways that computers can be used to enhance and expand the educational experience of students enrolled in the undergraduate chemistry curriculum. Discussions and hands-on laboratory exercises on visualization, simulation, molecular modeling, and mathematical software will be presented.

The workshop will focus on inquiry-based learning enhanced by computational thinking with content and practice to assist faculty to incorporate modeling and simulation at all levels from mobile devices, laptops, desktops, and –as needed– to high performance computing. The workshop will expose faculty to the basics of computational thinking, including modeling and simulation, with special emphasis on exploring topics that complement each other in math, engineering, and physical, life, and social science. Materials for the workshop are drawn from National Science Digital Library (NSDL), in particular Shodor’s extensive Interactivate collection of lessons, discussions, activities, and supporting materials, modeling software and curriculum, and other resources aligned with Common Core and various state standards. The workshop is aimed at faculty teaching the introductory courses for both majors, gen-ed, and pre-service teachers.

This workshop aims to expose participants to and inspire them with new techniques, teaching materials, and applications to use computational models in the undergraduate curriculum. By bringing faculty and teachers from different disciplines together so that they can learn how to incorporate computational models into their classrooms and research projects, it will advance the use of computing in undergraduate science education. We desire to have participants from a broad range of disciplines, including computer science, mathematics, and the physical and life sciences.

LittleFe is a portable mini-cluster which is small enough to fit in a shipping case, light enough to easily move between classrooms, and travels as standard checked baggage to conferences and workshops. LittleFe's primary focus is turnkey classroom demonstrations of, and exercises in, High Performance Computing (HPC), parallel programming, and Computational/Data Enabled Science and Engineering (CDESE). LittleFe supports shared memory, distributed memory, and GPGPU parallelism. LittleFe's secondary focus is as a production HPC resource for small institutions that are not yet able to afford or support a full scale cluster; in fact, LittleFe can be used as a gateway to, and development platform for full scale HPC resources.

LittleFe buildout events consist of participants assembling their LittleFe unit from a kit; installing the Bootable Cluster CD (BCCD) software on it; learning about the curriculum modules available for teaching parallel programming, HPC and CDESE; and learning how to develop new curriculum modules for the LittleFe/BCCD platform.

Teams from past LittleFe Buildout events will bring their LittleFe/BCCD units to a workshop to share ideas and best practices for developing new curriculum in a "Buildout-style" assembly of new curriculum modules. We would like you and a colleague or student working directly with you on LittleFe/BCCD curriculum or classroom use to attend as a team, but this is not a requirement.