Teaching

SYNOPSIS OF EXPERIENCE

    • I began teaching philosophy courses at the university level as a Teaching Assistant during an MA program at Virginia Tech. I began running my own courses during my doctoral studies at University of Wisconsin-Madison, and continued teaching during post-doctoral positions at University of Colorado-Boulder, Northwestern University, and now at the Australian National University. In total, I was a TA for eight distinct undergraduate courses over eleven semesters, then led seven distinct undergraduate courses over ten semesters and two distinct graduate level courses, and team-taught an interdisciplinary undergraduate course (with a geologist and an economist). I have been directly involved in educating roughly 2000 university students over my career, and I have supervised eighteen graduate student TAs. Most of the students in my courses have been rather happy with my teaching. For example, only four students, out of 534 total respondents in surveys for the courses I've led have had an overall negative opinion of my teaching. In August of 2019 I was nominated for the ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences’ Teaching Excellence Award. While at CU-Boulder, I held a substantial leadership role in education, where I served as the Faculty Teaching Mentor for their graduate student instructors. And I have given a number of presentations based on my ongoing scholarly project that aims to devise evidence-based strategies to make philosophy courses more inclusive for students who are non-white, non-male, LGBTQ+, learning-disabled, foreign-born or from working-class families. Lastly, in September of 2019, I applied for Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, which is a UK professional skills framework credential for those seeking leadership positions in university education. Below is a list of courses I've run as a lead instructor with syllabi and evaluation data when available (in reverse chronological order).


AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

Fundamental Ideas in Philosophy: An Introduction

    • Lecture-based introduction to philosophy, including both Eastern and Western perspectives. Lectures were supplemented with discussion sections (“Tutorials”) run by doctoral candidate (“Tutors”). As “Convenor” I planned all course content, designed all assessments, delivered all lectures, trained and managed the 5-person tutorial team, and handled all administrative tasks. (Enrollment over 350)

Logic and Critical Thinking

    • Lecture-based introduction to critical thinking, argumentation, and formal logic (up to predicate logic with relations). Lectures were supplemented with discussion/practice sections (“Tutorials”) run by doctoral candidate (“Tutors”). As “Convenor” I planned all course content, designed all assessments, delivered all lectures, trained and managed the 5-person tutorial team, and handled all administrative tasks. (Enrollment over 300)


NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY

Seminar in Philosophy of Science: The Science of Rationality and Group Decision Making

    • Graduate level seminar surveying work in philosophy of science, economics, social psychology, and organizational behavior in order to investigate the nature of group rationality and the ideal norms of group inquiry. (Max enrollment 12)

Climate Change and Sustainability: Economic and Ethical Dimensions

    • Introductory level, team-taught course (with a geologist and an economist) providing an interdisciplinary analysis of the political, economic, and ethical questions underlying the modern climate crisis. (Max enrollment 150)
      • Syllabus (Note: I was only responsible for Part II of the course; co-teachers controlled all other aspects.)


UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO - BOULDER

Symbolic Logic (6X)

Seminar in Philosophy of Science: Philosophy, Economics, and the Environment

Environmental Ethics

    • Upper level interdisciplinary course in environmental ethics. We covered such topics as intrinsic vs. instrumental value, anthropocentrism, animal ethics, biocentrism, holism, capitalist solutions to environmental problems, overpopulation, duties to future generations, climate change, and climate geoengineering.

Philosophy and the Sciences

    • Introductory course in philosophy of science. We covered such topics as the problem of induction and confirmation, the demarcation criterion, feminist critiques of science, the epistemological and ethical concerns of conflicts of interest in science, and the ethics of experiment. Large lecture format class with a TA who ran weekly recitations.

Critical Thinking-Contemporary Topics

    • Upper level course intended to foster clear, rational thinking and then apply this skill to issues of contemporary importance. We covered such topics as political bias, illusory superiority, biased probabilistic reasoning, harmful mental heuristics, implicit racial bias, the biology of race, affirmative action, racial profiling, overpopulation, and eating meat.

Philosophy & Society (2X)

    • Introductory level course in applied ethics and political philosophy. We covered such topics as animal ethics, abortion, euthanasia, war, terrorism, torture, distributive justice, affirmative action, and racial profiling.


UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN - MADISON

Reason in Communication (2X)

    • Course on informal and formal reasoning targeted to non-majors. We covered such topics as vagueness, ambiguity, diagramming arguments, illegitimate rhetorical devices, informal fallacies, Venn diagrams, truth-tables, natural deduction, and how to assess inductive, statistical, and causal arguments.

Contemporary Moral Issues

    • Writing intensive course targeted to non-majors with an emphasis on applied ethics. We covered such topics as animal ethics, abortion, euthanasia, war, terrorism, torture, and distributive justice.