As I study philosophy, I continually learn and relearn how many more interesting things there are to think about. My goal in teaching is to foster a similar curiosity in my students. This goal shapes how I plan my courses, engage with my students and offer feedback on their assignments.

I personally find it difficult to feel invested in learning about something if I don't understand both the broader context of the topic and how it relates to the way I live my life. I need to see both the forest and the trees. Thus, when planning the structure of my classes, I avoid using a unit structure where each unit is disconnected from the preceding units and instead always have a larger narrative that shapes the design of the course. For example, I teach a class, Communicating Moral Issues, that combines public speaking and contemporary moral issues. To lend continuity to the class, I focus on moral issues related to communication. I begin with a unit on personal values, arguing that we cannot communicate effectively if we don't know what we want to say and why we want to say it. I then proceed to a unit on listening, discussing echo chambers and epistemic injustice, to demonstrate that effective communication also requires understanding what our interlocutors think and value. Finally I move on to a unit on speaking, where we discuss both practical techniques for delivering speeches as well as moral issues related to communication, beginning with a discussion of free speech and then moving on to hate speech regulations, the ethics of protest and online privacy. I want my classes to tell a single story, albeit with many chapters. This helps my students understand why the topics should matter to them, thus enabling them to continue engaging with the issues after leaving the classroom.

In the classroom, one of my top priorities is to help students feel that their thoughts, experiences and opinions are relevant to the discussion. In a course evaluation, one of my students shared that I “never interrupted a student to help them out. I know this seems pretty minor, but the fact that she lets students get to their own conclusions is important in a class like this [Communicating Moral Issues].” Teaching, for me, is all about encouraging students to reach their own conclusions, while challenging them to think critically about whether their conclusions are worth reaching. I have recently started using an online platform, Kialo, which allows students to map out arguments. The platform allows for the whole class to engage with a single argument, with everyone adding their own supporting reasons or objections. I also typically include an assignment where they map out their own argument, to which I add an objection that they must respond to. I focus a lot on the importance of engaging in empathetic disagreement and how argumentation need not be a zero-sum game, with winners and losers. Rather, receiving an objection to our conclusion or argument is a chance to clarify our own position – to see its weaknesses, so that we can develop a stronger position rooted in a deeper understanding of the issue.

Learning should not feel like an isolated activity and as such I think a lot about group dynamics. In all my classes, I break students into smaller groups for discussion and homework review, which helps them get to know one another and seems to foster a sense of community. I find this especially helpful when teaching formal logic. Not only do small groups provides students the space to bond over learning difficult material, it also helps students encounter other ways of understanding the material. I like to remind students that they might explain things to each other in a different way than I do and their way might make more sense to their classmate than mine. Additionally, students are more open to admitting that they don't understand a concept when I am talking to them in a small group instead of in front of the whole class, which helps me gauge student understanding.

It is really important to me that students do not feel like asking questions or expressing confusion is something to be ashamed about. Instead, I want them to feel like asking questions is a service to the class because they are letting me know what I need to explain further or alerting me to an idea that I might not have thought to include in the discussion. I was previously a tutor with a high school mentoring program called AVID, where students were required to come to class with a question from their homework and a worksheet detailing what they knew about their problem and what part they were stuck on. I use a similar framework in helping students ask questions. I always ask them to tell me what they do understand to help them pinpoint what they don't understand. Often, in the process of reiterating what they know, they end up answering their own question, which empowers them to see themselves as problem solvers and not merely passive learners. When teaching formal logic, I reinforce this idea by offering partial credit for unfinished problems if students write out what they know about the problem and where they got stuck.

I recognize that in order to foster a sense of curiosity in my students, I myself must remain curious and willing to explore new ideas. Staying curious also means staying humble and listening to my students when they let me know something isn't working well or admitting when I've made a mistake. I've found this creates a positive learning environment for everyone in the classroom, which is reflected in consistent positive student evaluations and in my receiving the University of South Carolina Dept. of Philosophy 2019 Graduate Teaching Award.