Practical Case Studies in Teaching Concurrency

As with all aspects of computing, there are four main strands to teaching concurrency, viz hardware, theory, applications and programming, with programming linking the other three together. The basic requirements for practical work for each of these strands are discussed, and the problems of meeting these requirements. These have usually limited practical work in concurrency either to theoretical exercises, or to simple programming assignments in which students build complete programs starting from some given specification. The aim of this paper is to present some examples of an alternative approach to practical work in concurrency, using case studies instead of expecting students to build complete systems for themselves. Features and benefits of the case study approach are described, and examples are given of three case studies that have been used successfully. Finally, the role of software tools in facilitating such case studies is discussed briefly.