online teaching
Recent APA Grants Fund Projects on Outreach and Diversity
The American Philosophical Association (APA) has announced the winners of several of its grants for the 2017-2018 academic year. All of the funded projects appear to be aimed at growing philosophy’s constituency, focusing especially on younger students (including high schoolers)Â and members of groups traditionally underrepresented in professional philosophy in the U..
Mini-Heap
Here’s the latest edition of Mini-Heap—10 recent items from the frequently updated Heap of Links. Feel free to discuss. (more…)
Mini-Heap
Here’s the latest Mini-Heap: 10 recent items from the frequently updated Heap of Links, collected and numbered for your convenience. Feel free to discuss. (more…)
Converting One-Time Philosophy Students Into Repeat Enrollees
A philosophy professor writes:
Our department is thinking about ways we can convert students who take one class for accidental reasons (it fulfills a requirement or it fits a time slot) into students who take a few more classes. We’ve talked about a few strategies here, and I’ve looked around online a tiny bit for resources, but I thought this might be the sort o..
The Benefits of Pre-College Exposure to Philosophy: Data Needed
Occasionally philosophers make claims about the benefits of teaching elementary and high school students philosophy. (more…)
Mini-Heap
Here’s the latest Mini-Heap: 10 recent items from the frequently updated Heap of Links, collected and numbered for your convenience.Â
How To Use Recitation/Discussion Sections
Many college course have meetings of recitation or discussion sections in addition to the course lectures which are sometimes run by the professor, sometimes by teaching assistants. What goes on in the recitation is usually supposed to be different than the kind of thing that happens in the lecture; the small size of each recitation group, relative to the course’s w..
Mini-Heap
Here’s the latest Mini-Heap: 10 recent items from the frequently updated Heap of Links, collected and numbered for your convenience. (more…)
Mini-Heap
Once again, here’s the latest Mini-Heap: 10 recent items from the frequently updated Heap of Links, collected and numbered for your convenience. (more…)
A Case For Co-Authorship In Philosophy (guest post by Joshua A. Miller and Eric Schliesser)
The following is a guest post* co-authored by Joshua A. Miller (Georgetown) and Eric Schliesser (Amsterdam). A version of it was previously published at both of their blogs: Miller’s Another Panacea and Schliesser’s Digressions & Impressions. It includes information about the frequency of co-authorship in different disciplines, discusses varieties of co-authorship a..
APA Releases Draft of “Good Practices Guide” for Comment (reposting)
The American Philosophical Association (APA) has published a 77-page document, the “Good Practices Guide.” While some parts of the guide overlap with the recently issued APA Code of Conduct, it is “not intended to play the same role in regulating the conduct of academic life.” Rather, the guide is
a set of recommendations based upon the accumulated experi..
Mini-Heap
Mini-Heap: recent items from the frequently updated Heap of Links, collected in groups of 10, here for your perusal and discussion. (more…)
Philosophy Major, Tenured Professors at Risk at Mills College
The Department of Philosophy at Mills College in Oakland, California is one of a few departments that the school’s administration has identified as operating at a “negative net revenue,” and as a result, the administration may eliminate the philosophy major and tenured philosophy faculty at the school may lose their jobs. (more…)
How We Created A Philosophy Major (guest post by Matthew Brown)
The following is a guest post* by Matthew J. Brown, associate professor of philosophy and history of ideas at the University of Texas, Dallas, about how, in an era in which it seems that a different philosophy department is under threat of closure each week, he and his colleagues were actually able to create a philosophy major at their university. Excellent news! (m..
Mini-Heap
Mini-Heap: recent items from the frequently updated Heap of Links, collected in groups of 10, here for your perusal and discussion.
APA Issues Statement On Valuing Public Philosophy
The American Philosophical Association (APA) has issued a statement supporting public philosophy and urging philosophy departments to consider recognizing work in public philosophy not just as service, but also, when fitting, as teaching or research. Here’s the statement:
Mini-Heap
Mini-Heap: recent items from the Heap of Links, collected in groups of 10, here for your perusal and discussion. (more…)
Never Trained How To Teach
I was never trained or advised how to teach. I just imitated what I liked about my own teachers… Once I said in a lecture that some philosophical problem was very hard, and nobody knew how to solve it. Such a remark would have strongly motivated me, but the look on most of the students’ faces said “So why bother us with it? Go away and solve it, then you can come ..
Philosophy Classroom Poster Sessions
Nick Byrd, a PhD student in philosophy at Florida State University, has posted about the classroom poster session that students in Marcela Herdova‘s Free Will & Science course recently took part in. He says that it “was one of the most enriching classroom experiences I’ve ever witnessed.” (more…)
University of Zagreb Philosophy Under Threat (Updated)
The Division of Philosophy in the University of Zagreb‘s Department for Croatian Studies is under threat of closure, according to the text of a petition circulating online. (more…)
$2 Million in Fellowships for Improving Public Discourse
Humility and Conviction in Public Life, an interdisciplinary endeavor at the University of Connecticut directed by philosopher Michael P. Lynch and funded by the John Templeton Foundation, has awarded a total of $2 million to ten scholars engaged in various projects to improve public discourse. (more…)
The New Federal Task Force On Higher Education
The Trump administration is creating a new task force on higher education, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. It will be headed by outspoken Trump supporter Jerry Falwell, Jr., the current president of the Christian Liberty University, a school founded by his father and known for its teaching of “young earth creationism” in biology courses. (more…)
APA Issues Statement on 2016 US Presidential Election
The board of officers of the American Philosophical Association (APA) today issued the following statement on the 2016 U.S. presidential election:
Leading up to the United States presidential election one month ago and in the weeks since, the nation has experienced increasingly divisive rhetoric and a rise in bias-based attacks on members of vulnerable groups. In..
APA Awards Nine Project Grants
The American Philosophical Association (APA) has announced that it has awarded grants to nine projects—seven under its Small Grant Program and two under its Diversity and Inclusiveness Program. (more…)
Philosophers on the Professor Watchlist (Updated)
The “Professor Watchlist” is a website listing professors who someone has thought “discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom.” The list was created by Turning Point, a student-oriented non-profit organization which takes as its mission “to identify, educate, train, and organize students to promote the principles of fi..
Post-Election Changes To Philosophy Curriculum By Subject: Epistemology
The shock of the 2016 presidential election is still being felt keenly by educators, many of whom see in its victor, Donald Trump, the embodiment of so much of what we aim to overcome: ignorance, incompetence, carelessness, and a lack of concern for the truth. (more…)
Criticism of the APA’s Code of Conduct
Last week, the American Philosophical Association (APA) issued a Code of Conduct. The document was produced by a volunteer task force headed by Nancy Holland (Hamline University), in response to a petition. (more…)
Philosophy in Prison Program at U.Missouri Kansas-City Wins Prize from APA and PDC
The Philosophy in Prison Program of the Philosophy Department at the University of Missouri – Kansas City (UMKC) has won 2016 Prize for Excellence and Innovation in Philosophy Programs. The prize is awarded jointly by the American Philosophical Association (APA) and the Philosophy Documentation Center (PDC). The prize award is campus-wide electronic access to a bund..