Unusual Intro Courses: Call for participants for a new series

How do you teach an intro level course, such as Introduction to Philosophy? Many of us have considerable freedom in organizing our courses in the way we see fit. There are so many possible ways to approach this material that it boggles the mind. 

There has been a lot of recent discussion on Shen-yi Liao's unorthodox (at least in some respects) intro-level philosophy course, see e.g., here and in the Comments section on the Daily Nous blogpost, as well as Prof. Liao's follow-up post, here. Discussion has focused on what should be included in Intro level courses, to what extent we need to cover the classics, and how we can diversify the syllabus. 

As the Philosophers' Cocoon aims to be a forum of advice for early-career (and not-so-early career) philosophers, we are starting a new series "How do you teach Intro-level courses?" In this series, we want to showcase the many ways in which one can approach intro-level courses, in particular Introduction to Philosophy.

So we want to hear from you, reader. We want to hear about the orthodox, the unusual, the outlandish, the hyper-focused-on-one-philosopher, the thought-provoking assignments. You are free to structure your contribution however you like, but we suggest the following elements to be present:

1. The context: At what kind of place do you teach (e.g., a state university in the midwest, an elite liberal arts college)? What is the class size for this course? What is the student body like?
2. The course: Please describe briefly how you approach the course. We are in particular looking for Intro to Philosophy courses but any intro-level course (e.g., Intro to Ethics, Intro to Philosophy of Science, Intro to History of Philosophy) is welcome. Give an overview of some of the readings, topics, and assignments
3. The motivation: Why did you choose to structure your intro course this way?
4. How do students respond: What is the reaction of students? How do they engage with the materials? 

We hope this series will accomplish the following aims: 

• Give a sense of the wide diversity of ways you can teach an intro-level philosophy course
• Give new ideas to anyone who is looking for inspiration to revamp their course 

If it works out well, we might do future series on how people teach other kinds of courses (not intro-level, graduate seminars etc.) But for now, we want to focus on the intro! 

Please contact Marcus Arvan (marvan at ut.edu) or Helen De Cruz (hde-cruz at brookes.ac.uk) if you want to be featured for this series, or comment below. 

Comments

[Shen-yi Liao]

Thanks for this effort, Marcus and Helen.

I wonder if you'll consider anonymous posts (with perhaps non-anonymous submission)? As Prof. Olberding noted, some more vulnerable members of the profession had shied away from Deviant Philosopher for fear of, say, accusations of "professional misconduct". So perhaps that'd be a way to get more perspectives into this conversation.

P.S. I capitalize my first name as: 'Shen-yi'.

[Marcus Arvan]

Hi Shen-yi: I am certainly open to anonymous posts (provided the submission is made to us non-anonymously). And apologies the post incorrectly capitalized your name. I will fix it!

[Stacey Goguen]

Great idea; I'd love to do one of these! I'm also interested in hearing more from Shen-yi about his intro class, since, contra some of the Daily Nous comments, I don't think we can know much about *how* a person teaches just from their reading list. So I'd be interested to hear more about how you frame your readings in discussion and lecture, and if you've had instances of students being worried about 'indoctrination' or not hearing 'both sides.'

[Helen De Cruz]

That's an excellent point, Stacey! Indeed, in this series of posts we hope to get a holistic picture of how the course goes (we don't need an exhaustive list of readings or syllabus, although contributors can link to those if they like, if elsewhere available). I hope in this way, we get a better sense of how Intro is taught in a wide variety of institutional settings using many different approaches. We look forward to seeing your contribution!

[Amanda]

Should it be all "unusual" courses? I wouldn't mind also hearing how some people do their courses, even if they don't consider them all that unusual.

[Sara L. Uckelman]

I'd be happy to write up how I run my 1st year logic course.

[Marcus Arvan]

Hi Sara: that would be great! Just send Helen or me your post whenever it’s ready. :)