I am passionate about my teaching. I believe that as academics, it is our duty to bring scholarship to the public---hence why we have teaching positions. And I believe this is especially the case for philosophers: as (purported!) lovers of wisdom, I think we are called upon to share what wisdom we come across---however little!
My teaching is student-centered and equity-minded. I pursue these goals by offering courses with significant student input and flexibility and by incorporating extensive active learning. As an example, please see the Making Modern Science syllabus below, for which I received an Outstanding Teaching Award based upon student evaluations. The course employs a non-standard, game-like grading structure in which students build five different skills keyed to the course learning objectives. The novel touch: students can choose which skills to emphasize (and thus which assignments to do/not!) in order to achieve their desired letter grade.
I am also dedicated to building a culture of pedagogy outside the classroom. In this vein I created my department's Kent Johnson Memorial Fund Teaching Workshop, which offers training and support to philosophy graduate students across the campus' two philosophy departments. The Teaching Workshop features a variety of one-off workshops (in the past we have held ones on the LMS Canvas and on Logic and ChatGPT) as well as three permanent branches: a TA-shadowing program, a teaching reflections group, and a syllabus design working group.
In 2023, Brianne Donaldson (UC Irvine, Religious Studies) and I won a SET Foundations Course Development Prize (funded by the Templeton Foundation) to support the development and teaching of a syllabus---Religion and Philosophy of Science: Theory and Practice (found below)---integrating philosophy of science and religious studies.
Below, you can find syllabi for courses I am teaching, have taught, or plan to teach.
My teaching is student-centered and equity-minded. I pursue these goals by offering courses with significant student input and flexibility and by incorporating extensive active learning. As an example, please see the Making Modern Science syllabus below, for which I received an Outstanding Teaching Award based upon student evaluations. The course employs a non-standard, game-like grading structure in which students build five different skills keyed to the course learning objectives. The novel touch: students can choose which skills to emphasize (and thus which assignments to do/not!) in order to achieve their desired letter grade.
I am also dedicated to building a culture of pedagogy outside the classroom. In this vein I created my department's Kent Johnson Memorial Fund Teaching Workshop, which offers training and support to philosophy graduate students across the campus' two philosophy departments. The Teaching Workshop features a variety of one-off workshops (in the past we have held ones on the LMS Canvas and on Logic and ChatGPT) as well as three permanent branches: a TA-shadowing program, a teaching reflections group, and a syllabus design working group.
In 2023, Brianne Donaldson (UC Irvine, Religious Studies) and I won a SET Foundations Course Development Prize (funded by the Templeton Foundation) to support the development and teaching of a syllabus---Religion and Philosophy of Science: Theory and Practice (found below)---integrating philosophy of science and religious studies.
Below, you can find syllabi for courses I am teaching, have taught, or plan to teach.
