teaching

Tag

Post-Election Changes To Philosophy Curriculum By Subject: Political Philosophy

Last week we began soliciting suggestions for reading materials and lessons for various philosophical subfields in light of Donald Trump’s victory in the recent election. So far, we have threads running on epistemology, philosophy of language, and critical reasoning / informal logic. Today we’ll continue the series by asking for suggestions for political philosophy…

Post-Election Changes To Philosophy Curriculum By Subject: Critical Reasoning / Informal Logic

Continuing in our series of posts about changes to teaching materials and lessons for particular philosophical fields in light of the 2016 U.S. election (see previous installments on epistemology and philosophy of language), today’s post will be on courses variously described as “critical reasoning,” “critical thinking,” and “informal logic.” (more…)

Post-Election Changes To Philosophy Curriculum By Subject: Language

Yesterday I published the first in a series of posts about subfield-specific changes to philosophy curriculum in light of the 2016 U.S. election. That post is soliciting suggestions for readings, lessons, and teaching strategies for epistemology courses—keep them coming. (more…)

A Surprisingly Overlooked Gap in Philosophy (guest post by Bob Fischer)

Bob Fischer is an assistant professor of philosophy at Texas State University. In a brief conversation over the summer, he shared with me an observation about a problem teaching philosophy to college students and I thought, “no, that can’t be correct.” But he was right, and he was doing something about it. In the following guest post, he explains the problem and how..

Improve Your Philosophy Teaching With This One Weird Trick

What if I told you there was an easy, scientifically-proven, five-minute method for improving your teaching? Just five-minutes, and your teaching ratings go up. No, I’m not talking about giving your students candy when you have them fill out the course evaluation forms. I’m talking about an actual improvement in learning outcomes, based on real science. How much wou..

Philosophy Teaching Games

Do you use games as a teaching tool in your philosophy course? And if so, which games, and to teach what? The questions were prompted by a friend drawing attention to “The Hobbes Game” by John Immerwahr (in the Fall 1976 issue of Teaching Philosophy). He lays out the game in the first few pages of the article, reproduced below. See the full article for a discus..

Philosophy of War Audio Miniseries Available

A new philosophy show is in the works, and its creator has made three of its episodes—which together make up a miniseries on the philosophy of war—available to anyone teaching a course to which they would be relevant. (more…)

Snobbery, Outreach, and the Academic

Nancy McHugh, professor of philosophy at Wittenberg University, teaches philosophy in prisons as part of the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program. These classes are held in prison and have 15 regularly enrolled undergraduates (“outside” students) in them and 15 students who are inmates (“inside” students). McHugh recently co-authored a paper with a group that included..

Ideas for the First Day of Philosophy Class

Many universities start their fall semesters around now, so it’s a good a time—though not as good a time as last week—to ask: “what do you like to do on your first day of philosophy class?” (more…)

Should You Continue To Teach The Work of Sexual Harassers?

Thomas Pogge, whose alleged extracurricular activities, including sexual harassment, have been the subject of numerous posts here, is having his own place in the curriculum questioned. Pogge retains, for now, a prestigious named professorship at Yale. An article at Inside Higher Ed this morning discusses whether professors who believe he has acted at least problemat..

Teaching Students Logic Improves Their Logical Reasoning Skills

Newflash: teaching students logic improves their logical reasoning skills—at least according to some new research. You may be thinking, “duh,” but that would be a mistake. After all, “teach” isn’t a success term. And as it turns out, “there is little evidence that studying logic itself improves one’s logical thinking.” (more…)

Managing Classroom Discussions of Race and Police

A Daily Nous reader sends in a question concerning classroom discussions of recent events and the controversial and sensitive subjects they involve: (more…)

Diversifying Your Syllabus Made Easier (guest post by Simon Fokt)

The following is a guest post * by Simon Fokt (Edinburgh), who, among other things, created the Diversity Reading List, a resource for those interested in including in their teaching works by authors from groups traditionally underrepresented in philosophy.

(more…)

Should Philosophers Train Graduate Students to Teach? How? (Guest Post by David W. Concepción)

The following is a guest post * by David W. Concepción, professor of philosophy at Ball State University, which summarizes some of the findings presented in “The State of Teacher Training in Philosophy” (Teaching Philosophy 2016), a systematic look at the training in teaching graduate students in philosophy get (alternative link). In the paper, authors Concepción, Me..

Philosophy as a Way of Life: The Course

Philosophers, have you ever taught a course about philosophy as a way of life? Stephen R. Grimm, professor of philosophy at Fordham University, has. During the course his students have to select one of the ways of life covered in the course, spend three days living it, and then create video reflections of the experience. It would be great to hear from others who’ve ..

Teaching and the Philosophical Canon

“Perhaps all professional philosophers have wrestled with the problem of how to cover all the important things in the limited time of a single course.” But what are the important things? And who are the important figures?

In a post at the Blog of the APA, Peter Adamson (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität), who produces the podcast History of Philosophy without any Ga..

Small Changes to Improve Teaching

In a series of columns at the Chronicle of Higher Education, James M. Lang, a professor of English at Assumption College, has been suggesting small changes to teaching that, he argues, could make a big difference in student learning. Among the suggestions:

Before class:

Arrive early to have a little small talk with individual students (different ones each tim..

Philosophy Data from the Open Syllabus Project (Guest Post by Andrew Higgins)

The following is a guest post * from Andrew Higgins, who recently received his PhD in philosophy from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He spent some time combing through data at the Open Syllabus Project (previously) and in the post presents some information that should be of interest to fellow philosophers. Thanks, Dr. Higgins!

Philosophy Data from..

Enrollment Caps: How High is Too High?

A philosopher on the job market writes in with a question about course size:

A school that may offer me a tenure line position has a 65 student cap for intro courses, and I would be doing all the work (no grad program, no student graders, etc.). It is likely that I would have have to teach 2 such courses at once during either Fall or Spring, in addition to handli..

Free Resources for Philosophy Teachers

TeachPhilosophy101 is an open-source compendium of resources helpful for teaching philosophy. It’s mission is “to enhance undergraduate student learning in introductory philosophy courses by providing free, user-friendly strategies and resources to the academic community.”

The site covers everything from planning a course (including things like syllabi constructi..

Philosophers Called “Brilliant” More Than Other Profs (On Stupid Website)

The Economist analysed 1,289,407 RateMyProfessor.com reviews of 1,066 professors and lecturers in New York and has reported on some of its findings. Among them is the nugget that instructors of philosophy, compared with other disciplines, are most often described as “brilliant” by their students. According to the article, “an adoring student termed her teacher ‘a ph..

Open Syllabus Project

Colleen Cressman (MIT) draws our attention to the Open Syllabus Project. The project is a work in progress aimed at creating “the first large-scale online database of university course syllabi as a platform for the development of new research, teaching, and administrative tools.” It has a collection of over a million syllabi culled from the internet and other source..

Help With Philosophy Teaching

The editors of the Blog of the American Philosophical Association have begun a new series to help members of the profession with questions, challenges, and problems, about teaching philosophy. Jennifer Morton (CUNY) writes:

The Teaching Workshop is a new, regular feature on the Blog of the APA, run by the APA’s committee on the teaching of philosophy. Every other..

When To Quit Academia (Ought Experiment)

Welcome back to Ought Experiment! Today’s question is from a full professor that has done everything right, built a successful career, and yet finds her/himself miserable in professional philosophy. S/he wants to know whether it’s just a case of burnout or whether it’s time to go:

Dear Louie,

Help.

I have been a professor for almost 20 years. I’ve worked h..

Practical Questions About The Philosophy Curriculum

In a comment on a previous post, What’s “Core” and What’s “Peripheral” in Philosophy—and Why?, Brian Weatherson (Michigan) notes that there are “some practical questions that need answering from time to time.” They are:

Which subfields of philosophy should a philosophy major be required to take courses in?
Which subfields of philosophy should a PhD student be ..