Qualification:

PhD in computer science

Experience:

SHORT BIOGRAPHY I am an assistant professor in computer science graduated from Tokyo Institute of Technology. I am very keen of my job with 10+ Years experience in University. I feel a true devotion for teaching and do really love learning every day new things that have to do with Web services | Web programming with my students that share the same passion as me.

Approach:

I really consider myself blessed because I am doing the most rewarding job in the world: I have the opportunity to teach and learn, to motivate and be motivated while interacting every day with my students. Below, I am describing how teaching can be a great source of motivation and continuous learning:
I started my teaching career as a lecturer at the Faculty of legal, political and social sciences of Tunis. I was responsible of an introductory course of computer science skills for undergraduate students in which students learn fundamental IT skills (e.g. manipulating PC, OS, Microsoft programs (can be assimilated somehow to Microsoft office Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) certification)).

This was my first teaching experience right after coming back from Japan. While in Japan, I was doing research actively with Japan Science and technology Agency and my Laboratory team members at Tokyo institute of technology. I was all the time discussing and presenting my research progress either in Japanese or in English in seminars where we discussed every single details for hours sometimes. Every slide prepared for a conference was revised for hours to finally reach a satisfactory content that really depicts our proposal and on which the research team members agreed.

My research area, dependable web services composition, is an area with a background in data engineering, transaction models, service oriented computing, dependable computing, distributed computing and many other related areas. We get used to how to discuss and explain rather complex research topics. From dependable Web services composition and such complex topics, I found myself responsible for making undergraduate students (at the law department) learn very basics concepts such as how to use MS tools and a PC in writing their dissertations and so on.

This first teaching experience in 2009 was very challenging: How to make students who are not familiar at all with PC realize how useful and handy it could be in their studies.
What I learned from this experience is that:
Students are more receptive when demos are used in teaching and they are actively engaged in the practical part of the lecture. They are the students of the “law department”. Thus, every new concept should be the result of a discussion and I should show its added value.

I learned that newly introduced concepts should be explained with examples that are tightly connected to their field of study. That is why I have had to communicate and develop fundamental knowledge in law and political affairs.
I learned also that communication is essential and we cannot move forward without sharing and collecting ideas with colleagues. It was really a rewarding and motivating experience. I have had to convince my students with my strong believe that technical skills are essential for them and are a real plus for them whom are at the threshold of stepping into the real world. I have had to learn how to explain very basic concepts such as, how to open a program, how to create a file, how to create a directory, how to manipulate excel sheet and so on. I realized that students are not receptive if I am only using IT terms and giving all concepts and I should really make them actively involved in discussions.

My second experience was at the computer science and engineering school. As an assistant professor, I was responsible for designing Web programming and service oriented architecture lectures to diverse students: for bachelor students, and master course students.
Giving the same lecture to different populations of students in different ways: certainly, I will communicate to all of them fundamentals skills of the course. For example, when I am teaching The SOA lecture to master course students, I will focus more on developing their research skills like how to read conference papers on state of the art of web services compositions and make them learn how to develop their oral presentation and how to criticize a research paper and develop new ideas.

However, when I am giving the same lecturer to bachelor or engineering students, I will focus on giving them hands-on and practical experience in building real world web applications/Web services using HTML5, CSS3, server-side scripting technologies, client side scripting technologies such as PHP5, JS, XML technologies, WS-* standards and industrial solutions such as BPEL, WSDL, SOAP, OPENESB SOAPUI, and so on. Furthermore, I will make them develop oral communication, collective work and ideas sharing, teamwork and competitiveness.

The Web and Web services standards are part of evolving very rapidly. Based on my own experience and from the feedback provided by students, I believe that students should not only develop a deep understanding of fundamentals of web applications programming, but they should learn how to keep themselves up to date. I strongly believe that what is more difficult that teaching, is teaching students how to learn on their own. To this end, I always give my lecture notes beforehand. I advise my students to download the lecture materiel and read it before the lecture starts and prepare their questions.

I believe that reading the lecture materiel before attending the course will make them more receptive and curious about the new concepts. Raising their curiosity is essential, as it will undoubtedly make them learn easily new concepts.
I always try to show that listening to their questions and discussions is important and welcome their corrections and contributions. Even though I may give the same lecture to two classes, the lectures will not always be conducted in the same way, I try as much as possible to make my students interactive and make them contribute in enriching the lecture content. They need to feel themselves in a supportive and safe environment where they will not be afraid from making mistakes, as making mistakes is the first steps towards learning.

From year to year, I use diverse evaluation method: depending on the student’s skills and motivation, I will encourage either oral presentation or encourage them to work together to develop their problem-solving skills.
The process of using diverse evaluation methods allowed me to better motivate my students, better evaluate myself, and improve my way of communicating and explaining concepts.

Teaching is a wonderfully rewarding experience but at the same time, it is a heavy responsibility to teach all students in the same way especially when you have many groups enrolled in the same course. You have to be very careful, to be flexible enough and allow students contributions and communication and but at the same time you have to make sure that all the fundamental concepts were communicated to all the groups in the same manners. A strong commitment is required, and a total devotion is necessary.

I always believed that everything is motivation is an academic career, so if the lecture content is not motivating, you will not be able to devote yourself, time and energy. That is why as an assistant professor, I would like to teach subjects that at closely related to my research area. I am very comfortable at the same time with undergraduate students and graduate students. For undergraduate students, I am interested in teaching core web programming, XML technologies, WS-* standards. For graduate students, I would like to teach students interested in making from web services composition a reality by merging and taking advantage of recently emerged areas such as IoT, Data science and cloud computing.

Area:

Al Markhiya