Teaching
My pedagogy emphasizes the development and application of philosophical skills over the transmission of information. To illustrate this approach, I will describe a typical day teaching Introduction to Philosophy. For this particular class, we will discuss happiness. Students must practice conceptual analysis by providing what they consider to be necessary conditions for being happy. I have students do this by using a website called Poll Everywhere. This website allows students to write in responses via text message or computer. The responses will appear on the screen for everyone to see. Once I’ve collected the list of necessary conditions, students are then asked to evaluate the list to see if there are any necessary conditions that are too restrictive. If so, they must provide counterexamples. Once we’ve eliminated conditions that are too restricted, students must then evaluate the analysis as a whole and determine whether it is too broad. If so, they must again provide counterexamples. When students provide counterexamples, I will often make polls using these counterexamples and have other students weigh by voting on whether what is proposed is indeed a counterexample.
Often there will be themes that emerge when students provide their necessary conditions for happiness. For instance, students often use words like ‘enjoyment’, ‘satisfaction’, or ‘entertainment.’ If I notice a trend like this, then I will ask my students what they think is the conceptual relationship between happiness and pleasure. I make a poll on Poll Everywhere and offer the following choices:
A.Happiness and pleasure are the same concept.
B.All happiness is pleasure, but not all pleasure is happiness.
C.All pleasure is happiness, but not all happiness is pleasure.
D.Some pleasure is not happiness, some happiness is not pleasure, and some are both happiness and pleasure.
E.No happiness is pleasure, and no pleasure is happiness.
I will offer Venn diagram illustrations to help remind students how these relations work. Students then vote on what they believe is the correct. If they vote for any answer other than A, then I have students provide me with examples where one is present, but the other is absent. Students then reflect on these examples and use them to consider what necessary conditions might distinguish these concepts.
Outside of class, students are required to participate in email conversations with me. When teaching introduction to philosophy, I use these conversations as my primary form of student assessment instead of administering exams or papers. These conversations allow me to evaluate how well students are mastering philosophical skills like conceptual analysis. As in class, students will individually provide me with their conceptual analysis over this email conversation. In this respect, this conversation serves as a form of Socratic dialogue. I offer counterexamples and students must consider whether they will revise their analyses or bite the bullet. I will use questions to determine whether the logical implications of their views lead to contradictions, and if they do, students will be required to resolve these contradictions. One can see this conversation as a series of very low stakes quizzes. Students cannot lose any points for giving incorrect answers. Incorrect or confused responses just means that the conversation will take longer. The only way students can lose points is if they are late in responding to my questions. Students finish these assignments when they demonstrate mastery of the assignment objectives given in the rubric. (See my essay in Teaching Philosophy, volume 41, issue 1 for more details about this form of assessment.)
I intend for this account to illustrate several themes and that govern my pedagogy for teaching introduction to philosophy. First, my pedagogy emphasizes the acquisition of skill, not the acquisition of information. I don’t give lectures about hedonism. I don’t give PowerPoint presentations on Epicurus or Jonathan Bentham. Students learn to master philosophical tools and apply these tools to clarify their own understanding of concepts like happiness and pleasure. This leads to my second theme. My purpose for teaching introductory classes in philosophy is for students to engage in rational self-reflection. I don’t make students learn and evaluate someone else’s arguments. They are not required to recite to me Robert Nozick’s experience machine objection to hedonism. Instead they are required to consider their own understanding of concepts important to them and to think through the logical consequences of their worldview. Their goal in this class is to be able to articulate an internally consistent worldview. The third theme is that of maximizing engagement. I believe that maximizing engagement involves two things: increasing confidence and increasing relevance. My approach increases engagement along both of these lines for a diverse population of students. Students are not made to decipher technical arguments given by dead white male philosophers on topics that are far removed from their own interests and concerns. Instead, students learn to master tools essential to philosophy. By gaining proficiency in these fundamental skills, students gain confidence. By applying these skills to topics that matter to them, students gain interest. Greater interest and greater confidence lead to greater engagement. Greater engagement in turn contributes to deeper learning.
The above themes govern my approach not only to introduction to philosophy, but any other class where I have good reasons to believe that the students are unlikely to take another class, i.e. most 100 level classes. I’ve used this approach to classes I’ve taught such as introduction to ethics, human nature, and ethical issues. As students progress to higher level courses, my pedagogy still emphasizes skill acquisition, but the subject matter moves beyond self-reflection to more traditional topics in philosophy. I treat upper level courses as opportunities for students to continue to refine their skills and learn new skills that are particularly geared to that topic, perhaps similar to how an individual takes their cooking skills and applies them in learning how to cook a new type of cuisine. For instance, in classes I’ve taught like philosophy of science, students apply their skills in identifying and evaluating explanatory connections to issues like the status of theoretical entities and the question of whether science makes progress. In the future I would like to teach classes that intensively focus on the development of philosophical skills that are generally not found in logic or critical thinking classes. Examples of such skills include thought experimentation, various explanatory connections (e.g. grounding, supervenience, reduction, truthmaking, etc.), use of intuitions, and various philosophical heuristics.[1] These classes would serve to bridge the gap between introductory courses and higher level philosophy courses.
They say that the difference between a good teacher and a great teacher is that a great teacher loves their students more than they love the material they are teaching. I aspire to be a great teacher. My own pedagogy developed out of the frustration at seeing students who, in spite of participating in a course in good faith, leave the course with negative attitudes about philosophy. I used to think the problem was with the students, but I became firmly convinced that I was the problem. I’ve since reflected on every aspect of my teaching, and have been willing to jettison anything that doesn’t maximize student engagement and mastery, regardless of how entrenched in the status quo that practice might be. I will continue to evolve my teaching practice over time, but my focus will never deviate from the students and their success.
[1] See Alan Hajek’s article on philosophical heuristics and creativity for examples of heuristics. His paper can be found at http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.651.1834&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Often there will be themes that emerge when students provide their necessary conditions for happiness. For instance, students often use words like ‘enjoyment’, ‘satisfaction’, or ‘entertainment.’ If I notice a trend like this, then I will ask my students what they think is the conceptual relationship between happiness and pleasure. I make a poll on Poll Everywhere and offer the following choices:
A.Happiness and pleasure are the same concept.
B.All happiness is pleasure, but not all pleasure is happiness.
C.All pleasure is happiness, but not all happiness is pleasure.
D.Some pleasure is not happiness, some happiness is not pleasure, and some are both happiness and pleasure.
E.No happiness is pleasure, and no pleasure is happiness.
I will offer Venn diagram illustrations to help remind students how these relations work. Students then vote on what they believe is the correct. If they vote for any answer other than A, then I have students provide me with examples where one is present, but the other is absent. Students then reflect on these examples and use them to consider what necessary conditions might distinguish these concepts.
Outside of class, students are required to participate in email conversations with me. When teaching introduction to philosophy, I use these conversations as my primary form of student assessment instead of administering exams or papers. These conversations allow me to evaluate how well students are mastering philosophical skills like conceptual analysis. As in class, students will individually provide me with their conceptual analysis over this email conversation. In this respect, this conversation serves as a form of Socratic dialogue. I offer counterexamples and students must consider whether they will revise their analyses or bite the bullet. I will use questions to determine whether the logical implications of their views lead to contradictions, and if they do, students will be required to resolve these contradictions. One can see this conversation as a series of very low stakes quizzes. Students cannot lose any points for giving incorrect answers. Incorrect or confused responses just means that the conversation will take longer. The only way students can lose points is if they are late in responding to my questions. Students finish these assignments when they demonstrate mastery of the assignment objectives given in the rubric. (See my essay in Teaching Philosophy, volume 41, issue 1 for more details about this form of assessment.)
I intend for this account to illustrate several themes and that govern my pedagogy for teaching introduction to philosophy. First, my pedagogy emphasizes the acquisition of skill, not the acquisition of information. I don’t give lectures about hedonism. I don’t give PowerPoint presentations on Epicurus or Jonathan Bentham. Students learn to master philosophical tools and apply these tools to clarify their own understanding of concepts like happiness and pleasure. This leads to my second theme. My purpose for teaching introductory classes in philosophy is for students to engage in rational self-reflection. I don’t make students learn and evaluate someone else’s arguments. They are not required to recite to me Robert Nozick’s experience machine objection to hedonism. Instead they are required to consider their own understanding of concepts important to them and to think through the logical consequences of their worldview. Their goal in this class is to be able to articulate an internally consistent worldview. The third theme is that of maximizing engagement. I believe that maximizing engagement involves two things: increasing confidence and increasing relevance. My approach increases engagement along both of these lines for a diverse population of students. Students are not made to decipher technical arguments given by dead white male philosophers on topics that are far removed from their own interests and concerns. Instead, students learn to master tools essential to philosophy. By gaining proficiency in these fundamental skills, students gain confidence. By applying these skills to topics that matter to them, students gain interest. Greater interest and greater confidence lead to greater engagement. Greater engagement in turn contributes to deeper learning.
The above themes govern my approach not only to introduction to philosophy, but any other class where I have good reasons to believe that the students are unlikely to take another class, i.e. most 100 level classes. I’ve used this approach to classes I’ve taught such as introduction to ethics, human nature, and ethical issues. As students progress to higher level courses, my pedagogy still emphasizes skill acquisition, but the subject matter moves beyond self-reflection to more traditional topics in philosophy. I treat upper level courses as opportunities for students to continue to refine their skills and learn new skills that are particularly geared to that topic, perhaps similar to how an individual takes their cooking skills and applies them in learning how to cook a new type of cuisine. For instance, in classes I’ve taught like philosophy of science, students apply their skills in identifying and evaluating explanatory connections to issues like the status of theoretical entities and the question of whether science makes progress. In the future I would like to teach classes that intensively focus on the development of philosophical skills that are generally not found in logic or critical thinking classes. Examples of such skills include thought experimentation, various explanatory connections (e.g. grounding, supervenience, reduction, truthmaking, etc.), use of intuitions, and various philosophical heuristics.[1] These classes would serve to bridge the gap between introductory courses and higher level philosophy courses.
They say that the difference between a good teacher and a great teacher is that a great teacher loves their students more than they love the material they are teaching. I aspire to be a great teacher. My own pedagogy developed out of the frustration at seeing students who, in spite of participating in a course in good faith, leave the course with negative attitudes about philosophy. I used to think the problem was with the students, but I became firmly convinced that I was the problem. I’ve since reflected on every aspect of my teaching, and have been willing to jettison anything that doesn’t maximize student engagement and mastery, regardless of how entrenched in the status quo that practice might be. I will continue to evolve my teaching practice over time, but my focus will never deviate from the students and their success.
[1] See Alan Hajek’s article on philosophical heuristics and creativity for examples of heuristics. His paper can be found at http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.651.1834&rep=rep1&type=pdf