teaching
TagDoes Your Department Have an AI Policy? Here’s Edinburgh’s
Has your department instituted an AI policy? If so, whom does it govern, and what does it say? What should such a policy say? (more…)
Out of Context Philosophy
If you open up a philosophy article or chapter on your computer, the software you’re using, now updated with various AI features, may present you with something like the following message: “This looks like a long article. Would you like me to summarize it for you?” (more…)
How To Write A Philosophy Paper: Online Guides
Some philosophy professors, realizing that many of their students are unfamiliar with writing philosophy papers, provide them with “how-to” guides to the task.
Grieving What AI Has Taken from Learning
“I wonder if these people have ever seen a student’s face when they finally understand something for the first time.” (more…)
Publishing, Teaching, and the Philosophy Job Market (guest post)
How many publications do early career job applicants in academic philosophy have? How many courses have they taught? How have the answers to these questions changed over the past decade? (more…)
The Philosophy Curricula in Mid-20th Century UK Universities
Who and what was covered in philosophy courses at UK universities in the 1950s and 1960s? (more…)
Shortcuts to the End of the University? (updated)
“It’s not just the problem of brazen cheating. In some ways, the more insidious threat LLMs pose to undergraduate learning is the promise of instant shortcuts.” (more…)
All Happy Classrooms (guest post)
Are all happy classrooms alike? Probably not. But perhaps there’s some qualities common to many of them. (more…)
Grammarly Is a Cheating Machine
Grammarly is sometimes thought by instructors to be a relatively benign writing tool app, akin to a sophisticated spelling and grammar checker. (more…)
Crafting a Critical Thinking Course that Sticks with Students (guest post)
A forthcoming study shows that a critical thinking course focused on a few good, relatively easy to learn, and useful reasoning strategies can impart lessons that remain effective long after the course has ended. (more…)
How Much Reading Do You Assign? Poll Results
Last week, I asked philosophy instructors to let us know how much reading they assign in their undergraduate courses. (more…)
How Much Reading Do You Assign?
At the end of this post is a poll about how much reading you assign. Please take part in it if you teach philosophy courses. Thanks. (more…)
Justifying the Inclusion of Race, Gender, Sexuality (etc.) in Philosophy Courses
Some university administrations are (as we have seen) trying to prevent professors from teaching about topics related to gender, sexuality, and race. (more…)
Are Current Events Making Their Way Into Your Classroom? How?
Though philosophers are often (if not quite accurately) thought to have been asking the same questions for thousands of years, philosophers throughout history have responded in their work to the circumstances of their day. (more…)
Fighting AI with AI
Is there a German word for a feeling that combines admiration, weariness, and a touch of disgust? That word would be handy as we continue to catalog attempts to teach in a world of artificial intelligence, such as this one from professor of technology and business Panos Ipeirotis (NYU). (more…)
Adamson’s “Rules” for Writing Philosophy
“The first question is: what is the question?” (more…)
A Course on Public Philosophy
What does a course on public philosophy look like? (more…)
When You and Your Students Write the Book of Your Course (guest post)
Some people have the ability to look at a mess and see the makings of something beautiful. (more…)
The Dangers of Data on Teaching in Higher Education
“The dirtiest secret in higher education is that there is no good data on the quality of teaching and teachers on college campuses.” (more…)
The Stories of Bioethics
“When Medicine Becomes Torture: Burn Patient Dax Cowart and His Involuntary Treatment for 232 Days”, “Bomber, Pass By: How the Abortion-Clinic Bomber almost Killed Me”, and “The Biggest Loser Wasn’t Just Unhealthy—It Was Unethical” are just three of the episodes in Gregory Pence’s video series, Great Stories in Bioethics. (more…)
Argument Isn’t Everything: On Creativity in Philosophy
“I don’t believe that arguing is usually the way we come up with good ideas. Argument might be an effective way of deciding which ideas to believe in. But adjudication is not creation. Safety inspections are important for deciding whether a building is sound. But safety inspections on their own don’t erect the building to be inspected.”
Texas Tech Chancellor Opposes Freedom, Endorses Inefficiency
Texas Tech University System Chancellor Brandon Creighton, in a memo yesterday to the presidents of the universities in the system, announced a policy to “ensure that classroom instruction fully complies with state and federal law, Board of Regents policy, and Chancellor directives.” The memo includes a remarkable flowchart. (more…)
The Charade of Banning “Advocacy”
“Leaders at these institutions want to ban only certain topics from discussion. To do so, they have issued vague directives that no one knows how to interpret.” (more…)
Beyond Authorship Vibes: Preserving Judgment and Trust in the Age of AI (guest post)
Artificial intelligence is an amazing technology, but also one that seems to pose threats to human relations, to aspects of human flourishing, and to education. (more…)
Even Conscientious Students in Their Favorite Courses…
In a philosophy seminar—“my favorite class I’ve taken so far,” she said—Gwen used AI to write almost all her essays just to avoid late submissions. (more…)
Is this the Fastest Growing Undergraduate Philosophy Program in the US?
“In Fall 2022, we had four students majoring or minoring in Philosophy; today we have 31.” (more…)
American Association of Philosophy Teachers Upcoming 50th Anniversary (guest post)
The American Association of Philosophy Teachers (AAPT) will be 50 years old next year. (more…)
Research-University-Biased Perceptions of Professional Philosophy
What do you do as a philosophy professor? What does it take to get a job as a philosophy professor? To get tenure? What is teaching like? What is a philosophy department like as a work environment? How much does college or university administration affect your work? What are plusses and minuses of the job? (more…)