As the first philosopher at Oregon Tech, I’ve developed an unusually high number of courses. This has allowed me to spend more time than most assistant professors reflecting on what makes a course successful at both imparting a specific body of knowledge and developing transferable skills that will serve students in all majors.
When teaching a philosophy class, one of my primary goals is to arm my students with a clear understanding of arguments and basic critical thinking skills. With these tools, they can question the advertising that bombards them, the political rhetoric that surrounds them and infiltrates their social media timelines, and the conventional wisdom of society. This goal is so important to me that I generally teach introductory-level courses as methods courses. I teach the students to recognize, reconstruct and test arguments and I continually emphasize that they can use these same tools outside the classroom.
I begin each class with an outline of what we will discuss; I explain why the topic is important and how it relates to the other material in the course, in their other courses, and in their daily lives. I end each class by reinforcing the relevance of that day’s material.
Because students have such a wide variety of learning styles, I make sure to explain the material in multiple ways: drawing pictures on the board, giving several examples, using graphical, textual, and verbal explanations, and requiring students to teach concepts to one another. Hypothetical cases are key to discussing philosophy and I always try to make mine memorably funny. Humor and performance are a big part of my teaching style. I literally work up a sweat making the material come alive for the students.
But my performance doesn’t dominate the class. Teaching and learning is a cooperative activity. I can learn from the students and they can learn from each other. So I make sure that the students interact with each other in small groups to discuss the positions presented, brainstorm objections and concerns, and even argue (politely of course). I set my groups early and keep them stable throughout the quarter. This serves several purposes: it allows the natural competitive tendencies of the students to come into play as they bond with their group and try to outdo other groups, it helps reinforce social skills including working long-term with people who are very different from themselves, and it helps shy students make friends. To give the students writing practice, I assign at least two short papers in all my non-logic classes. I like to assign shorter writing assignments with detailed instructions and clear expectations.
Students come out of my courses with a range of transferable skills, including the ability to work in groups, the tools to argue opposing positions with respect and rigor, and clearer, logical writing.
I find teaching an exciting and a central part of being a philosopher. I want to get it right, because it is such a reward to see my students thinking well. I get good evaluations. For the vast majority of classes and course objectives, I receive scores that are “higher” (top 20%) or “much higher” (top 10%) than the average scores at Oregon Tech. In addition, many students sign up for additional classes from me after our first term together, so I feel my approach is working well for my students.