You can download a formatted version of my teaching portfolio (from 2016) by pressing this button
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Here is a statement of my teaching philosophy
(an excerpt from my complete teaching portfolio)
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(an excerpt from my complete teaching portfolio)
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I focus my teaching on two main ideas. The first idea is that a philosophy course is both a knowledge project, which involves learning philosophical content, and a skill project, which involves developing philosophical skills. The second idea is that experience is the best teacher. Putting these two ideas together, I strive to help students use their own experiences to discover philosophical knowledge and to develop philosophical skills.
My belief that students best acquire philosophical knowledge by drawing on their own experiences can be seen in the way that I pose questions. Instead of presenting philosophical questions in the abstract, I ask them in the first person plural. For example, I do not ask, “Does God exist?” I ask, “Should we believe that God exists?” I do not ask, “Is abortion morally permissible?” I ask, “Should we believe that abortion is morally permissible?” Putting the questions in the first person signals to the students that the answers should matter to them. These are not simply abstract questions of no real consequence. These are questions of personal belief that students may answer by drawing on their past experiences. Putting the questions in the plural also signals to the students that answering these questions is a communal project. In order to answer them, we must try to reach some kind of consensus with one another. This highlights the importance of argumentation in philosophy, further supporting the idea that each student’s personal perspective and past experience is valuable to the project.
Another technique I use is to dramatize philosophical problems and solutions in a way that helps students realize for themselves the force of the issues. For example, when I introduce students to Hume’s problem of induction, I bring to class two small black balls that look very similar but that actually have quite different properties: one ball bounces quite well, but the other hardly bounces at all. These are known as happy/sad balls. At the beginning of class, I bounce the happy ball several times as I’m talking, not saying anything about why I am doing so. Later, I stop bouncing the happy ball and secretly exchange it for the sad ball. When I have nearly finished explaining Hume’s response to the problem of induction, I throw the sad ball down hard on the floor. The students invariably flinch thinking that the ball is going to take off chaotically around the room. Instead it just hits the floor with a thud. This dramatizes the effect of habit on our expectations. The students developed an expectation after having seen the ball bounce several times, and that expectation is thwarted when the ball doesn’t do as expected. I can then more easily make the point that Hume tries to make, that our expectations about what will occur, developed from long habit, is the entire source of our ideas of causation. In this way, the students have experienced Hume’s “solution” to the problem of induction rather than merely learned about it.
I also believe that student experience is a useful tool for building philosophical skills. One technique I have used is something I call philosophy lab (for an example, see section 7 of my portfolio). The idea behind philosophy lab is to apply science pedagogy to philosophy. In science classes students are often asked to do lab work because this helps them learn and develop scientific skills, like hypothesis testing and data analysis. I use a similar model to teach philosophical skills, like reconstructing arguments, developing objections, and concept analysis. Each lab focuses on a specific philosophical skill and presents the students with specific tasks designed to help them understand and develop that skill. For example, in one lab, I give each lab group a simple, ordinary object, like a paperclip or a piece of chalk. I ask each group to identify the kind of object I have given them. Next, I ask them to make a list of all the properties they can think of that makes their object a thing of its kind. So now they have a list of necessary conditions. The next step is for the students to think of an object that satisfies their list of necessary conditions but does not count as a thing of the same kind. The students are now trying to develop their list of necessary conditions into a set that is also jointly sufficient. This is when the groups invariably struggle, so they begin to see for themselves how difficult it is to give a complete analysis of even the simplest concept. I can then relate the lab back to the concepts we are currently studying in class.
In conclusion, my teaching focuses on increasing my students’ philosophical knowledge and developing their philosophical skills by helping them discover these things for themselves.
My belief that students best acquire philosophical knowledge by drawing on their own experiences can be seen in the way that I pose questions. Instead of presenting philosophical questions in the abstract, I ask them in the first person plural. For example, I do not ask, “Does God exist?” I ask, “Should we believe that God exists?” I do not ask, “Is abortion morally permissible?” I ask, “Should we believe that abortion is morally permissible?” Putting the questions in the first person signals to the students that the answers should matter to them. These are not simply abstract questions of no real consequence. These are questions of personal belief that students may answer by drawing on their past experiences. Putting the questions in the plural also signals to the students that answering these questions is a communal project. In order to answer them, we must try to reach some kind of consensus with one another. This highlights the importance of argumentation in philosophy, further supporting the idea that each student’s personal perspective and past experience is valuable to the project.
Another technique I use is to dramatize philosophical problems and solutions in a way that helps students realize for themselves the force of the issues. For example, when I introduce students to Hume’s problem of induction, I bring to class two small black balls that look very similar but that actually have quite different properties: one ball bounces quite well, but the other hardly bounces at all. These are known as happy/sad balls. At the beginning of class, I bounce the happy ball several times as I’m talking, not saying anything about why I am doing so. Later, I stop bouncing the happy ball and secretly exchange it for the sad ball. When I have nearly finished explaining Hume’s response to the problem of induction, I throw the sad ball down hard on the floor. The students invariably flinch thinking that the ball is going to take off chaotically around the room. Instead it just hits the floor with a thud. This dramatizes the effect of habit on our expectations. The students developed an expectation after having seen the ball bounce several times, and that expectation is thwarted when the ball doesn’t do as expected. I can then more easily make the point that Hume tries to make, that our expectations about what will occur, developed from long habit, is the entire source of our ideas of causation. In this way, the students have experienced Hume’s “solution” to the problem of induction rather than merely learned about it.
I also believe that student experience is a useful tool for building philosophical skills. One technique I have used is something I call philosophy lab (for an example, see section 7 of my portfolio). The idea behind philosophy lab is to apply science pedagogy to philosophy. In science classes students are often asked to do lab work because this helps them learn and develop scientific skills, like hypothesis testing and data analysis. I use a similar model to teach philosophical skills, like reconstructing arguments, developing objections, and concept analysis. Each lab focuses on a specific philosophical skill and presents the students with specific tasks designed to help them understand and develop that skill. For example, in one lab, I give each lab group a simple, ordinary object, like a paperclip or a piece of chalk. I ask each group to identify the kind of object I have given them. Next, I ask them to make a list of all the properties they can think of that makes their object a thing of its kind. So now they have a list of necessary conditions. The next step is for the students to think of an object that satisfies their list of necessary conditions but does not count as a thing of the same kind. The students are now trying to develop their list of necessary conditions into a set that is also jointly sufficient. This is when the groups invariably struggle, so they begin to see for themselves how difficult it is to give a complete analysis of even the simplest concept. I can then relate the lab back to the concepts we are currently studying in class.
In conclusion, my teaching focuses on increasing my students’ philosophical knowledge and developing their philosophical skills by helping them discover these things for themselves.