Teaching

* indicates a course without discussion sections

From Introduction to Political Philosophy (lower-division class, Winter 2024):

"Alex, thank you for a great quarter and for your enthusiasm to help us in section. I really enjoyed the open discourse you facilitated during our section and that whenever we had questions, you answered precisely and thoroughly. I think the topics we went over in section were all particularly interesting and refreshing from different field of political science. Office hours were very useful, thank you for making yourself accessible two times in the week for us to receive feedback. I also really appreciate your willingness to keep communication open with us through email and in class."

"Mr. Aloy was extremely helpful to me in this class. On the first paper I received a less–than–ideal grade so I decided to go in for office hours to get additional feedback and get help with planning my next essay. Mr. Aloy sat and talked with me for a long time and was more than willing to answer all of the questions and concerns that I had about my grade and my future paper, and was amazing at explaining things more than once in more than one different way to be sure that I understood my feedback and the prompt to the next assignment. Not only did my meeting really help me feel better about the next paper that I was writing, but overall I genuinely think the feedback that I have gotten made me a much better writer and much more prepared for more difficult writing assignments that I will be facing throughout the rest of my college career."

"Mr. Aloy was an extremely helpful and understanding TA and did a great job at explaining the course material to his students and came up wit innovative ways for us to engage in the section."

"The TA made numerous activities in little groups of students which enabled sharing ideas which is very important in a class of philosophy, thus the course was really interesting."

"Really liked this section and thought that it was so great in being able to understand the course material more thoroughly, since political philosophy is the kind of subject that can be difficult to truly grasp without discussing the concepts more than once. Liked the structure and how group participation was valued in class."

"I think that Alexandre did a great job of helping me understand the course. I enjoyed this because the lecture is not as interactive and this gave me further insight into the course content. He did a great job of integrating the information from the course into discussion based work and gave great feedback on assignments and essays."

"This was truly an enjoyable section, that I did not dread going to. The group discussions helped us better understand and connect with the subjects being discussed in lecture and in turn helped us write our essays. Thank you!"

"I really enjoyed our section activities for understanding the course material. It was super helpful to compare and contrast the different thinkers and place them + their ideas within new contexts."

"My TA was great, he helped add to my understanding of the course material and the assignments for the class."

"Alexandre was very nice and supportive, and always tried to encourage discussion among students with regards to the readings. His feedback on the essay's was also very useful and easy to understand."

From Defense Against the Political Dark Arts (upper-division class, Spring 2025):
"I loved the environment that he hosted, allowing for a lot of student cooperation. The questions we tackled in section were very helpful for exam preparation as well."

"I really appreciated Alexandre's patience in allowing us to develop thoughtful responses rather than rushing us during section. The combination of group activities combined with individual reflection was a helpful balance that helped me gain insight from my peers, particularly during quote analysis. I liked that we were allowed to include modern applications of these dark arts during our analyses, such as social media or current politicians, because it helped me understand these dark arts through something I can relate to."

"Aloy ran a very helpful section that paired excellently with this course. The structing of the section, going from answering questions in groups to comign togetehr to talk about that question before movign onto the next question(s) was great. I really appreacitated Aloy sendign out a google doc before section with the questions/topics we were goign to cover, this allowed me to mentally preapare for the discussions I was goign to have in section and made them far less surface level than I have had in other sections."

"The section was designed well, and I found the balance of group and class discussion as approachable and engaging. The section's conversation and peer to peer engagement on relevant texts made each section unique and incredibly useful as a support to my textual understandings and take–aways ( as well as helped guide my own thought when approaching course assignments). Alexandre is consistently approachable and available. It is clear that he is not only personally vested in the subject and has extensive background, but that he is capable of aiding my understanding. I appreciated the classroom atmosphere and repore, even lively debate always felt respectful and considerate.
Grading was increibly fair. I have had Alexandre in multiple courses as my TA and have always found his specific notes, even on blue book writings as overall useful in crafting more concise and careful arguments. In the courses where I've taken advantage of adapting those errors on future assignments, I always noticed a fair and balanced increase in my grade. High scoring work is not impossible but also not easily earned which results in me spending more time with class material and personally wanting to improve my writing and use of the course texts. Grades were also extremely timely.
Thank you for an amazing quarter!"

"I think our sections were formatted in a really good way to encourage synthesis and student–to–student conversation, which can really simplify and solidify concepts."

"Alexandre did a great job of facilitating section discussion in a way that felt natural."

"I like how you do section hands off and let students speak to each other about the material, it is vital so section doesn’t become like a second lecture. You give good feedback in section and have helped my understanding of the material."

"Thank you for a quarter of helpful sections!"

"Section was a great time to interact with classmates and have meaningful conversations about the course and topics we were learning about, his questions were very good."

"Awesome discussions!!! Made me feel super comfortable to share, that is not super common with upper divs! :)"