Teaching policies
Here are a few issues that come up regularly:
My views on grading:
I use grades to communicate evidence that a student has demonstrated certain skills in a class. When I give an "A," that is meant to indicate that, from what I have seen in the context of the class, I am confident that the student has the abilities to read, understand, and write about philosophy, as well as the abilities to get specific tasks accomplished (e.g., completing papers on time). When I give a lower grade, that is meant to indicate that what I have seen in the class was not enough for me to know whether the student has these skills. That is all that I intend grades to signify. Here are some implications of my approach:
I do not think of grades as rewards or punishments. I don't think I'm in a position to assess whether students' skills or lack of skills is something they are morally responsible for, or to evaluate how much effort it took them to acquire those skills. For some students, acquiring the skills is much easier than for others, and some students enter the class with more skills already in place. It is my job as an instructor to give everyone a fair chance to acquire the skills, and I take that job very seriously (and am constantly trying to get better at it). It is also my job to evaluate skills as fairly as possible, such as through blind grading (which I use whenever possible). But grading itself is just about looking for evidence of skills, regardless of how those skills were acquired.
One important skill in the academy and the professional world is paying attention to what exactly some task requires. For that reason, an assignment that does not address one part of the instructions or prompt (e.g., "consider a reply to your objection") will lose points, even if it displays impressive evidence of other skills.
Grading is not personal. There are many reasons why a student might not provide evidence of the needed skills in an assignment. Perhaps she has the skills, but was enrolled in other demanding courses that kept her from putting enough time into my class. So I do not assume that lower grades indicate lower intelligence, worse personal character, etc. They merely indicate that I did not end up having evidence of the skills the class was focused on.
Plagiarism defeats my evidence. My assignments can provide evidence of skills only if the work is all the student's own. If it turns out that's not the case, then I can no longer treat the assignment as evidence of skills. This is why plagiarism results in 0's in my classes, not because I intend it as revenge.
I take this approach for three reasons:
When employers and admissions committees look at student transcripts, the main thing they are looking for (or should be looking for!) is evidence of certain skills. How much effort the student put into acquiring those skills is rarely relevant, though the skill of acquiring skills can be relevant (that can be indicated by an upwards trajectory of grades).
I am skeptical of our ordinary beliefs about reward and punishment, especially given systematic injustices that affect how students of different backgrounds perform in classes. What looks like punishable apathy from an instructor's point of view is often the effects of an unjust system. Patterns of injustice are very difficult to detect in individual cases, and my training as an academic does not make me particularly well equipped to detect them in the context of grading. My training is, however, supposed to equip me to assess evidence for the presence of certain skills, and that is all that I assess.
A clear connection between grades and evidence of skill possession provides straightforward incentives to students who want high grades. They simply need to acquire the relevant skills and find out how to demonstrate them. Extra effort that does not help in acquiring or demonstrating skills is not incentivized. By contrast, if high grades were rewards for effort, then there would be an incentive for students to put more energy into their assignments regardless of whether it contributed to skill development or demonstration.
Writing style
For those new to writing philosophy: please see the 'Resources' section. In almost any philosophy paper, your aim is to clearly develop one idea of your own (and yes, please use the first-person). A clear paper is one that an intelligent but uninformed reader could easily read. Unless otherwise indicated in the assignment, you should not make use of outside sources. For references: any standard style will do, as long as it is consistent.
Extensions
I do grant extensions for serious personal/medical issues (on a case-by-case basis). Please do not ask me for extensions due to hectic schedules, last-minute technical problems, or because you misread the due date on the syllabus.
Facebook/Linkedin/etc.
As a general rule, I do not accept social networking requests from undergraduates who are currently enrolled in one of my classes (or who will likely be enrolled in upcoming semesters). Please don't mistake that for unfriendliness!
I generally do not read or respond to email during weekends or evenings.
I generally do not respond to emails asking questions that are answered by the syllabus.
I'm happy to respond to general philosophical questions by email, whether or not they're related to the class. Please understand that it may take me a few days to respond, though.
Plagiarism and online content
Universities are one of the few institutions that value truth and intellectual integrity as such. For that reason, I take apparent cases of plagiarism extremely seriously.
To repeat: Do not use external sources for a philosophy assignment unless the directions say otherwise, and always use proper references.
You should be wary of online philosophy 'resources' generally. While there are some excellent materials out there (such as the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy), there are also a lot of confused and misleading websites, and someone new to philosophy will often not be able to tell the difference.