This page contains many of my own resources, documents, and handouts I have developed for philosophy instructors and teaching assistants (primarily through my work as a Lead TA for my philosophy department). While some of the documents are specific to my graduate department, I hope others might also find the resources useful.
My Online Interactive Resources
This site contains an interactive “card file” list of philosophy active learning activities, ranging in size from individual, small group, or entire class. Each activity includes directions as well as pointers on running the activity in a philosophy classroom.
Digital Humanities is a quickly growing area of research in the academy. As instructors, there are many ways in which we can use a variety digital tools in the classroom can lead to deeper learning and engagement with course material. This page outlines a variety of digital tools, and how we can use them in our philosophy classrooms.
Classroom Management Strategies
Under Construction…
Handouts and Documents
Lead TA Workshops
Below are the slides from some of the workshops I ran for TAs in my department during the 2013-2014 academic year.
– TA Crash Course
– Leading Effective & Inclusive Tutorials
– Effective Grading
– Syllabus & Course Design
– Digital Humanities
+ Workshop Storify
+ Resource Page
– Teaching Dossier
Bonus: AAPT Presentation
This document discusses setting classroom expectations on the first day of class. Things to consider include what your students can expect from you, what you expect of your students, and asking what your students expect of you. It also includes a list of example expectations that you may want to set with your class.
This checklist was created for my department’s instructors who work with TAs. It contains a checklist of items for instructors to discuss with their TAs at the start of the course, as well as a top 5 tips for creating a positive TA experience for the graduate students.
In recent years, there has been a shift in course design theory towards being “learner-focused”: the instructor designs the course with the primary factor of consideration being what the student will know at the end of the course. This handout broadly outlines the three stages of backward design model for course design (one approach to take in creating a learner-focused course).
Western’s Philosophy Graduate Student Association (PGSA) organizes a peer-mentoring program, in which all incoming MA and PhD students are paired up with a more senior grad student as a mentor. This handout was created as a rough starting guide for grad students who wanted to serve as a mentor, but might be unsure what that entailed, or what they should consider.
More Coming