As I mentioned in my introductory post, I plan to write mostly about teaching. But I don’t want to give the impression that I think I’m an expert dispensing pedagogical Truth. I’ve taught a fair amount for a grad student: I’ve been sole instructor for 8 courses, I’ve TA’d a bunch, and I was a GRE tutor and a marching band percussion instructor. [1] But I’m definitely still picking it up as I go, and I hope that writing at the Cocoon will be another avenue for learning from folks who know things I don't.
With that in mind, I thought I’d start by sharing my collection of online teaching resources. I have these bookmarked and refer to them often, especially when I’m thinking about a new course. These are collections of entries, not single articles (though I may post a collection of those later). I hope you find them useful. More importantly, I hope you have suggestions to add to the list. If you know a good source I missed, put it in the comments and I’ll update the post periodically.
Teaching-focused websites
Philosophy Teaching-focused organizations
American Association of Philosophy Teachers
Philosophy Blogs
Philosophers' Cocoon: Teaching
Feminist Philosopher: Teaching
Non-philosophy blogs
Faculty Focus: Teaching Professor
Chronicle of Higher Ed: Profhacker
Inside Higher Ed: Just Visiting
University teaching & learning centers
UT Austin Faculty Innovation Center
Columbia Center for Teaching and Learning
Michigan Center for Research on Teaching and Learning
Brown: The Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning
Berkeley: Center for Teaching and Learning
Washington: Center for Teaching and Learning
Carnegie Melon: Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence & Educational Innovation
One source I’ll single out is the newsletter from Faculty Focus. The occasionally send out rather expensive workshops, books, etc., so it can be a bit spammy, admittedly. But the newsletter also sends out focused weekly tips for a whole range of issues in teaching. I like it because it is a regular reminder of all sorts of nuts-and-bolts strategies on things like minimal marking or class participation.
I’ll also note that the APA has a list that includes both links to other collections and to discrete articles (and to the Cocoon!)
[1] If you think teaching undergrads is hard, try strapping a bass drum on a 13 year old and then training them to not hit it.
Good idea, rounding them all up in a post here!
Another one, something of a troubleshooting guide from CMU: https://www.cmu.edu/teaching/solveproblem/step1-problem/index.html
Posted by: Michel X. | 02/04/2016 at 07:10 PM
Thanks, Michael. I realized after writing this that I'll be able to clean up my bookmark folder by linking here, so everybody wins!
CMU link is great, btw. Thanks for sharing.
Posted by: Jerry Green | 02/04/2016 at 08:56 PM
Future reference, I forgot Faculty Focus has a nice blog too, which isn't that easy to find on their site: http://www.facultyfocus.com/topic/articles/teaching-professor-blog/
(h/t to Donna Engelmann for this one, who posted it on the AAPT facebook page. You should join if you're interested in philosophy teaching).
Posted by: Jerry Green | 02/06/2016 at 05:22 PM