Teaching philosophy
My views on doing and teaching philosophy are highly influenced by the fact that I came to philosophy later in life, with an academic formation and professional experience in a different field. While I strongly defend that philosophy, and the humanities generally, are an inherently valuable part of a comprehensive education, I also often think about philosophy as a toolbox to help me better understand, analyze, and solve problems in my “native discipline”.
Since I often teach philosophy to non-major undergraduate and professional students in the natural and health sciences, I find my view to be useful in helping them understand the value of taking courses in philosophy. Many of these students take philosophy courses to fulfill a mandatory requirement, and they are often convinced that taking a course in ethics is not only an unnecessary inconvenience, but also takes time away from other courses which, in their view, are more central to their professional formation. Also, these students are also often used to a teaching and learning approach that focuses on the delivery and retention of high volumes of information. I try to use these two points to my advantage in two ways; first, I avoid linear approaches that involve the teaching of principles or theories followed by attempt to apply those theories to different problems, in other words, I don’t want them to see me as an animated knowledge repository. Second, I prefer to start from what already interests or seems important to the students; this information helps me select case studies or examples that they will find more engaging. Once we have identified case studies for discussion, my approach is to start with the identification of ethical dilemmas. I have found that one of the reasons why many of my students feel that ethics is not important or not interesting is that they have not yet learned to identify the ethical threads of the complex problems in their social and professional lives.
In my teaching, I like to make use of visual and communication technologies whenever they help accomplish the learning goals of the course. I often use videos, film clips, media articles, blogs, and social media posts as artifacts for discussion, and I encourage students to bring their own examples from these outlets. Even for classroom-based courses I often take advantage of the tools offered by course management systems, such as online discussion boards. In doing this, I have noticed that the online discussion alternative often motivates the participation of students who are more introverted and less likely to participate in an in-class discussion. I have also found these tools useful when discussing difficult or controversial topics such as implicit racial bias in clinical practice. Opening an anonymous, online discussion board prior to an in-class discussion of the controversial topic or prompt allows students to be honest about their position without fear of judgment or retaliation, and also allows me to prepare for and mitigate potentially offensive comments in a face-to-face discussion.
As for assessment, whenever possible prefer to use a combination of short, spontaneous assessments (pop quizzes or two minute essays) that serve the purpose of acting as checks for completion of reading assignments, and longer, cumulative assignments (reflection papers or argumentative essays) to demonstrate a deeper understanding and an ability to apply the key concepts of the material being covered.
My views on doing and teaching philosophy are highly influenced by the fact that I came to philosophy later in life, with an academic formation and professional experience in a different field. While I strongly defend that philosophy, and the humanities generally, are an inherently valuable part of a comprehensive education, I also often think about philosophy as a toolbox to help me better understand, analyze, and solve problems in my “native discipline”.
Since I often teach philosophy to non-major undergraduate and professional students in the natural and health sciences, I find my view to be useful in helping them understand the value of taking courses in philosophy. Many of these students take philosophy courses to fulfill a mandatory requirement, and they are often convinced that taking a course in ethics is not only an unnecessary inconvenience, but also takes time away from other courses which, in their view, are more central to their professional formation. Also, these students are also often used to a teaching and learning approach that focuses on the delivery and retention of high volumes of information. I try to use these two points to my advantage in two ways; first, I avoid linear approaches that involve the teaching of principles or theories followed by attempt to apply those theories to different problems, in other words, I don’t want them to see me as an animated knowledge repository. Second, I prefer to start from what already interests or seems important to the students; this information helps me select case studies or examples that they will find more engaging. Once we have identified case studies for discussion, my approach is to start with the identification of ethical dilemmas. I have found that one of the reasons why many of my students feel that ethics is not important or not interesting is that they have not yet learned to identify the ethical threads of the complex problems in their social and professional lives.
In my teaching, I like to make use of visual and communication technologies whenever they help accomplish the learning goals of the course. I often use videos, film clips, media articles, blogs, and social media posts as artifacts for discussion, and I encourage students to bring their own examples from these outlets. Even for classroom-based courses I often take advantage of the tools offered by course management systems, such as online discussion boards. In doing this, I have noticed that the online discussion alternative often motivates the participation of students who are more introverted and less likely to participate in an in-class discussion. I have also found these tools useful when discussing difficult or controversial topics such as implicit racial bias in clinical practice. Opening an anonymous, online discussion board prior to an in-class discussion of the controversial topic or prompt allows students to be honest about their position without fear of judgment or retaliation, and also allows me to prepare for and mitigate potentially offensive comments in a face-to-face discussion.
As for assessment, whenever possible prefer to use a combination of short, spontaneous assessments (pop quizzes or two minute essays) that serve the purpose of acting as checks for completion of reading assignments, and longer, cumulative assignments (reflection papers or argumentative essays) to demonstrate a deeper understanding and an ability to apply the key concepts of the material being covered.