Because I’m a teacher, I have lots of opinions about teaching! In my job as a teaching consultant, I’ve had the chance to dive deeply into the empirical and theoretical literature on teaching. My constantly evolving teaching approach is partially represented in this page, with some evidence that I live up to my values.
Critical and Democratic Pedagogy
My approach to teaching philosophy attempts to increase students’ abilities to make effective decisions for themselves and for groups they are a part of (e.g. the class). I ask my students to experiment with me, to find ways to grow that aren’t entirely constrained to the status quo. I consider my teaching approach to be within the critical pedagogy tradition, especially in the style of Dewey and Freire.
- Alternative Grading Systems – I have used specifications and ungrading systems in many of my courses.
- Sharing Power with Students – Students get power to make decisions collectively and individually in my courses.
Highly Interactive
Active learning is a cornerstone of effective teaching and I use lots of question-asking and activities in my course. Having students do the work, beyond listening or taking notes, is key to how I run my class. I was observed in my course on Pragmatism in Fall 2025. One theme of that observation (using the PAITE protocol) was how interactive the class was:
- Led a highly interactive class session. The instructor asked a total of 16 specific questions during class (including active learning debriefs).[And] students provided 60 answers throughout the class session. The instructor led discussions where multiple students would volunteer to answer each question, once directly responding to another student. Students also asked 13 questions during the class.
- The instructor led three active learning activities. Despite the very high number of student answers, not every student participated in the classroom discussion. I observed a particular student who never spoke up in the large group or the small group work really engaging in the Think-Pair-Share activity and the reading activity. Active learning often helps increase the equitable participation opportunities in class and in this case the last two activities were conducive to reserved students speaking up more. Of note, the instructor also used methods to increase a more equitable participation during the large group discussion by saying “looking for someone else” and “I’d love to see another hand.”
- Group work – 8 minutes
- Students formed groups spontaneously, ranging from 3 to 6 students.
- Instructions were clear and the discussion questions (about “Doubt”) were available on the projected slide throughout the activity.
- Groups started talking immediately after receiving instructions.
- At least one student seemed quiet, yet listening, in their group of 6.
- Individual reading activity – 11 minutes
- The instructions for the activity were displayed on a slide.
- Students were engaged in reading.
- Students were thinking about a specific question during their reading (“Notice differences between Descartes and the two pragmatists:).
- Think-Pair-Share – 4 minutes
- The question was displayed on the slide.
- Students turned to a neighbor and started discussing their answers right away.
- Group work – 8 minutes
Positive Classroom Climate
Philosophy, especially for novices and those who aren’t used to intellectual controversy, can be intimidating to participate in. I do my best to invite different sorts of students into the discussion. During Pragmatism in Fall 2025, I was observed using techniques that are likely to increase student sense of belonging and willingness to speak:
- Used student names consistently throughout the class session. The instructor used student names throughout class over two third of the times that he called on students. The instructor referred to a previous student’s answer using their names three times.”
- Affirmed students’ answers and questions. The instructor affirmed student answers and questions throughout the class. The affirmations for questions were stronger than most affirmations for answers. The instructor for instance said “Multiple great questions here,” “interesting question,” “that’s a great question.” For student answers, the dominant form of affirmation for student answers was “yeah.” Sometimes, the instructor would add on to the answer. On a few occasions, the instructor used stronger affirmations such as “I’m glad you picked that up,” “thanks Jeff for pointing that out,” “I love that you bring up…” Overall, half of the two minute increments recorded during class contained an affirmation.