Teaching

I believe in teaching philosophy holistically, which means applying a variety of methods, media, and assignment types to engage all learning styles. 

To accomplish this goal, I have developed a new teaching method, the Active Inquiry Approach. With this method of teaching, students do at least one movement activity in every class. Put differently, in my philosophy class, no matter the reading, students get out of their seats every single class. While this approach is demanding, it is also highly effective (the data speaks for itself). This means that I carefully design games and role-playing simulations, and incorporate learning objects for every class.

One such game is the "Assembly Line," where students mimic early industrial factory work by drawing the same part of an image and passing it down the line at increasing speed and pressure. This exercise typically functions as the springboard to discuss the labor theory of value and capitalist alienation.  In another activity, "Pool Noodle Evolution," I bring pool noodles into the classroom and students use them to simulate prehistoric hominin conditions. The students build shelters, make tools, and throw pool noodle spears. This activity functions as a springboard for discussions about social, cultural, and material co-evolution, the theory of the extended mind, and material engagement theory. In general, my approach to teaching is that even for college students, learning is doing, especially for critical thinking. 

In the same vein, when I teach logic, I have invented a Dungeons & Dragons-style game in which students use sentential logic derivations to solve puzzles and defeat enemies. Additionally, I frequently switch between discussion, small group work, and in-class writing exercises. Given this approach, I will go out on a limb and claim that I have successfully managed to make Introduction to Logic a fun and engaging course.

I am currently writing a book on the Active Inquiry Approach to education. This book utilizes data from teaching reports, experiments, and cognitive science to demonstrate why movement is essential for teaching critical thinking. The book also comes with sixty ready-to-use higher-ed teaching activities.    

Furthermore, I often offer a range of more untraditional assignments in addition to regular papers. For example, I ask my students to curate music playlists that engage with philosophical content from class and ask them to justify their choices. I find it important to teach from the student's starting point and not from some abstract idea of where they ought to be academically. 

College students today have a shockingly short attention span. Thus, to stimulate engagement and reinvigorate student attention, I often implement stretching and yoga exercises into my classes. For example, I sometimes have students do somatic exercises at the beginning or midway through class to recenter their attention. Often, a two-minute mindfulness exercise is enough to refocus a class and rekindle the discussion.

I always teach a diverse curriculum of thinkers and perspectives. Thus, my classes typically follow a set of problems rather than running in chronological order. My syllabi include texts by women and people of color and use them as central texts rather than for tokenized inclusion. In a similar vein, I understand that my students often come from very different socioeconomic backgrounds and aim to create safe classroom environments where all students are encouraged to bring their perspectives. Specifically, this means I have my students agree to the code of conduct included in their syllabus before the semester begins. Furthermore, even when I teach more abstract topics such as metaphysics or logic, I encourage my students to connect these topics to their lived experiences and to speak about that connection. 

If you would like a sample syllabus, game, or activity instructions, feel free to send me an email.