Teaching Statement

French version for junior research positions: Enseignements (PDF, 86Kb)

I have been a teaching assistant for the INPG (Grenoble Science Enginneering Schools). I have done all my teaching at the École Nationale Supérieure d'Informatique et de Mathématiques Appliquées de Grenoble (ENSIMAG) and the Ensimag Telecom, 64 hours a year from 2002-2005, and 96 hours in 2005-2006 as a temporary teaching position (ATER).

Scientific communication to general audiences

During year 2004, I have launched, with other teaching assistants from several research teams and broad research communities (Computer Vision, Parallelism, Computer Graphics) a scientific communications project. During a national science fair where French research labs are invited to present their work to the public, we proposed and prepare an interactive demonstration, based on our current research works. We developed a mixte reality plateform for the occasion, building upon our existing research code. During two days, october 15th and 16th, 2004, we presented are work through this demo using 30 minute time slots to several hundred people, 20 to 30 at a time. The demonstration consisted of an interactive 3D reconstruction application coupled with a multi-projector setup for visualization. Four cameras were placed such that a few people could enter the interaction zone, and interactive frame rates were achieved using a custom PC grid, using on-site PCs and remote PCs located at the INRIA Montbonnot lab communicating through a gigabit network. People could see their clone as reconstructed by the application. Virtual hair was added on the head of the 3D clone to illustrate new interaction modes the system offers (using work from CG specialists in our team). We also took time to explain the scientific motivation and technical difficulties involved in our research, using visual cues in the demo to build the discussion upon. This project involved many technical, organisation and communication challenges which were successfully overcome.

Algorithmics

From 2005-2006, I was in charge of a group for practical Alorithmic courses and assignments. The goal was to teach, using lecture and support exercises, the basic algorithms and datastructures in computer science, and served as a complement to the main class lectures. Assignments were solved interactively, and the principles of algorithmics reviewed for deeper insights. I have also given and corrected two home assignments for this course. 45 hours (56 hours "équivalent TD").

From 2002 to 2003, I corrected Algorithmics practical assignment reports, for students in 1st year of the Ensimag's engineering program (3rd year after highschool graduation). The assignments covered topics lectured in the main course Introduction to Algorithmics, such as sorting, searches and trees. For each of the four assignments I was invited to report mistakes and general remarks in the associated main course during 15 minutes.

Algorithmics/C++/Checkers project

From 2002 to 2005, I supervised an Algorithmics project, and participated in the building and the maintenance of the associated teaching ressources (code, web site, documentation). Within this project, during a full semester, students are to build a C++ application which plays checkers, thereby applying the theoretical knowledge reviewed during the associated main course of advanced algorithmics: game theory, heuristics, parallelism, branch & bound, advanced searches. During the yearly 18 supervised project hours, three are dedicated to a special course on C++ (as it is the first time students manipulate C++ within the school) and to an introduction to the Athapascan API for task-stealing parallel programming, to be used in their project. For this teaching project, I was part of a teaching team of 2 professors and 2 teaching assistants.

Assembly language project in C

From 2002 to 2005, I supervised a C programming project. First year engineering students (BAC+3) were to develop an assembler or simulator for 80x86 CPUs. This provided practice to apply and acquire knowledge in C, low-level programming and instruction sets, compilation, low-level computing systems and representation of relocatable code (ELF format). This project mobilizes a team of 6 to 7 professors and teaching assistants, and takes place during two weeks where students work full-time on the project. During these two weeks I was involved several days to coach and correct students, break their misconceptions, revive concepts lectures in the main courses.

Introduction to networks

From 2003 to 2005, I supervised in-class assignments as part of an Introduction to Networks module, for first year Ensimag students. Students were to test and practice their newly reviewed knowledge about computer networks (TCP/IP, telnet, unix, ftp, ssh, netperf, DNS). I have prepared various assignments involved, as well as an examination assignment.