Teaching
CategoryStudents Have Easy Access to Ghostwriters for Hire — What Should Teachers Do?
Recently, Eric Winsberg (South Florida), as an experiment, tweeted, “Who could I pay to write a five-page essay for me that I need to turn in for my philosophy class?” (more…)
Foreign Language Instruction Through Philosophy Courses
Stephen Angle, professor of philosophy and East Asian studies at Wesleyan University, teaches one section of his Classical Chinese Philosophy course in English, and another in Mandarin. (more…)
Philosophical Wonder and “Math Anxiety”
The true humility, the sort of wonder which we wish to induce as philosophers, can only be achieved when one has achieved a certain degree of well-founded confidence in one’s ability to understand and assess claims. (more…)
How Philosophy Fits Into Your School’s Gen Ed Requirements
What role do philosophy courses play in the general education requirements of your college or university? (more…)
Which Video Games for Which Philosophical Lessons?
It’s not unusual to solicit books, movies, and television shows that might be particularly useful for teaching about certain philosophical problems. What about video games? (more…)
Teaching Students How To Ask Philosophical Questions
“Question asking… is a skill all-too-often undervalued in philosophy pedagogy and philosophy pedagogy research”
A Plea for More Teaching Apprenticeships (guest post by Mercy Corredor)
“Working for an instructor is worlds apart from working with an instructor with the aim of learning about the practice of teaching.” (more…)
New Open Access Text On Probability & Decision
Jonathan Weisberg, associate professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto, has created a new open-access book on probability and decision-making. It has the brilliant title Odds & Ends. (more…)
Syllabus Sleeper Hits
The fall term is getting underway at many institutions of higher education, and a philosophy professor has written in with a suggested topic for discussion: syllabus sleeper hits. (more…)
What You Wish You Knew When You Started Teaching Philosophy
The fall term is almost upon us, so let’s talk teaching.
Teaching-Focused Philosophy PhD Programs
Which philosophy PhD programs focus on training students to teach and getting them placed into permanent teaching-oriented jobs (with some success)? (more…)
Crash Course: Metaphysics & Epistemology of Race
Welcome to another installment of the “Crash Course” series, this time on the metaphysics and epistemology of race. (more…)
Reading Philosophy: Observations & Advice
“I didn’t know that there is a field of study that counted as sensible the questions that were always in my head. Even more amazing is that the type of thoughts I offered as answers, while ramshackle, were the same type of answers philosophers provide. I changed my major before the end of the semester. But I had a problem. I did not know how to read philosophy.” (mo..
Crash Course: Consequentialism & Deontology in Contemporary Normative Ethics
We’re going to try to solicit recommendations for a “crash course” on an aspect of contemporary ethics. (more…)
A New Kind of Critical Thinking Text (guest post by David Manley)
“What would it look like if we taught only the most useful skills from the toolkits of philosophy, cognitive psychology, and behavioral economics?” (more…)
David N. Mowry (1941-2019): “What does one say about the teacher who saved your life?” (guest post by Jack Weinstein)
David N. Mowry, professor emeritus of philosophy at the State University of New York (SUNY) Plattsburgh, has died. (more…)
Crash Course: Epistemology of Disagreement
Around four years ago, I had a short-lived “Crash Course” series of posts here at Daily Nous. (more…)
Grade Anarchy & Student Learning (guest post by Marcus Schultz-Bergin)
“My core hypothesis was that student learning would actually be improved by eliminating instructor grading from the course.” (more…)
Remixing the Open Logic Text
Have you checked out the Open Logic Project recently? Created a few years ago, it’s an open-source, collaborative logic text that has several nice features. One is that the material is modular: it can be “remixed” into individual open-source texts on specialized subjects. There are now a few examples of this. (more…)
How Early Modern Philosophy Courses are Taught
Bringing Ethics Into Computer Science at Harvard
Computer scientists and philosophers are working together at Harvard to bring ethics into computer science courses. (more…)
The Point and Selection of Readings in Introductory Philosophy Courses
“What role should readings play at the lower undergraduate level in a philosophy class?” (more…)
An Approach to Teacher Training in Philosophy Departments (guest post by Colin Heydt)
“This is not revolutionary stuff. But it is important. And it is stuff I wish I’d known about early in my teaching career.” (more…)
An Online Trove of Ethics Case Studies
The Media Ethics Initiative at the University of Texas, Austin “exists to promote and publicize research on the ethical choices involved in media use.” One of the ways it has done this is by creating a large, varied and free online collection of ethics case studies. (more…)
Did I Miss Anything? On Attendance
“Did I miss anything?” It’s a common question from students.
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Reminder: Summer Programs in Philosophy
This is just a reminder that if you are running a summer program in philosophy for either undergraduates or graduate students, email me information about it and I will add it to the relevant post. (more…)
Writing Philosophy and Developing Curricula with Undergrads
Some professors see their students, at least sometimes, as partners in education, but Matthew Slater, professor of philosophy at Bucknell University, does impressive work to make that partnership a reality.
Empirical Support for a Method of Teaching Critical Thinking
A few years ago, a meta-analysis of studies about whether colleges do a good job of teaching critical thinking revealed “no differences in the critical-thinking skills of students in different majors.” (more…)