Christina Hendricks :: Blog

http://weblogs.elearning.ubc.ca/chendricks/2008/12/resource_for_teachin

I just found a great resource for those who want to think further about teaching philosophy: a site called Teach Philosophy 101 (www.teachphilosophy101.org). It is focused on teaching introductory courses, but many of the suggestions there could be adapted for upper-division courses as well. Among the many helpful things on this site: discussion of challenges of teaching philosophy (and resources for addressing them), innovative assignment ideas, discussion of effective lecturing techniques, and lots of links to further reading and other resources. They are looking for contributions of ideas from others as well, to make the site even more useful. An excellent site, well worth a look.

http://weblogs.elearning.ubc.ca/chendricks/2006/12/long_time_no_blog.ht

Well, I fell prey to the scourge of bloggers--the neglect that comes with being just too darn busy to post. I was so caught up in teaching this term that, though I kept thinking I really need to just post even some short thoughts as better than nothing, I instead let it go until the end of the term. Now that classes have finished for the Fall term, I have a little time to post some reflections on my courses.

In my Social and Political Philosophy course this past term, I tried two new things: (1) requiring students to keep some kind of journal over the course of the term, and (2) a new kind of group assignment.

(1) Journals: I required that students keep some kind of record of reflections over the course of the term. There were 3 entries due by approximately the 6th week, and 8 total due by the end of the term. The options were: handwritten entries, typed entries that they printed out and gave to me or sent via email at the two due dates, posting to the discussion boards on the course website, or sending me a link to their personal blogs on the net. There was only one student who had a personal blog, and the rest of the class was split about half and half between doing their entries on their own and turning them into me, and doing them on the class discussion boards. There was one discussion board for the whole class, and then a discussion board for each of the 8 groups to which the class was broken up (see below). Some of the groups had quite lively discussions, but most students just posted their own journal entries in a piecemeal fashion, without commenting on any of the others' entries. What counted for entries: one's own reflections on readings, lectures, discussions, as well as comments on postings by others (each had to be about 200 words or so).

This assignment went pretty well, I think. Several students commented to me that they found it useful to be encouraged (heavily!) to take the time to write down their thoughts in a way that was rather unstructured, where they didn't have to feel like they needed to have a solid argument, but were thinking their way through something. I told them at the beginning of the course that that was the whole purpose of the assignment, that I had found for myself that the best way I come up with ideas for papers is to write my thoughts through. They become more clear and focused as I just continue to write them out in a somewhat unstructured way.

I marked the entries as completed or not, and thus was able to mark 8 entries each for 55 students without too much problem. The main difficulty for me was that I wanted to comment on many of them, to tell students what great ideas they had, or correct problems, and with that many entries to deal with all I could do was skim!

(2) Group assignments: In the past I have had group presentations, where students work together in groups of 3-8 or so, depending on the size of the course, and give a presentation to the rest of the class. This has been a really great assignment in the past, as student have come up with fabulous things to say that I would never have thought of. But when you've only got about 12-13 weeks in a course, and lots of students, it can be challenging to find the class time for presentations while also including enough content in the course. So I tried a compromise this term.

I broke the class (originally 60, then went down to 55) into 8 groups of 7-8 people each. These groups met for about 15 minutes or so, approximately once per week (with a few weeks w/o group meetings). During most of these meetings, one person was in charge of leading the discussion. That person wrote a 2-page essay on the reading assigned for that week, with a summary of one of the main arguments in the reading, and one-two questions or topics for group discussion. They were to give a short version of the summary and then give the discussion topics to the group to talk about.

In addition, I required that those doing a summary for the week email me their discussion question/topic the day before the group meeting. I had hoped that I would be able to incorporate these questions/issues into the lecture for that day.

Finally, I required that each student include at least 2 responses to other students' presentations in their 8 journal/discussion board assignments.

The purposes of these assignments included: (a) encourage students to discuss the reading before the lecture, to come up with their own ideas about it, so that during the lecture they could ask questions/raise issues that they might not have done before b/c now they have had time to think about them before the lecture; (b) encourage not only those doing the summary and presentation to focus carefully on the reading before lecture, but also those group members involved in the discussion to do so--hopefully, if they know they'll be discussing a reading before lecture, they'll be encouraged to actually do the reading; (c) give students a chance to teach each other about the arguments/ideas in addition to hearing what I have to say; (d) give me a heads up about what kinds of things they're interested in the day before the lecture, so I could address some of these in lecture; (e) give everyone a chance to do their own, individual presentation to a group and allow this to work in a big class by having the presentations go on simultaneously.

I am looking forward to seeing what the students thought about this assignment, when I get the evaluations back. No one said anything to me about them during the course. The 2-page essays were generally quite good, though one problem was that some readings were much harder than others for students to understand on their own (they had to do a summary of something that had not been lectured on yet. I'm thinking that if I do this kind of assignment again, I may have students write up comments/criticisms/questions on things we have already discussed to some degree in class, so that this problem is avoided.

I'm not sure that encouraging the other group members to do the reading before the group discussion worked. I think many of them relied on the summary by the presenter and then tried to discuss on the basis of that alone. It was hard to tell, just walking around listening to the groups, if this was the case.

One downside to having the presentations go on simultaneously is of course that I could not mark them on their oral presentation, b/c I couldn't hear them all! They only got a mark on their written summary and whether or not they sent their question to me the day before via email.

Having them send the question/comment to me the day before via email was a little confusing for them, though the vast majority managed to do it. It didn't work out quite as I had hoped, in that I just didn't have time to really address many of the questions in the lecture. I had too much to talk about already, which was my own fault in planning. I managed to address some of them, but not enough to make this part of the assignment work as I had planned.

I had hoped that by starting the class meeting off with the group discussions and then going into the lecture, that students would be more likely to raise questions/objections during the lecture b/c they had just talked about the material. This didn't happen very much. I think that since they had just talked quite a bit in their groups, and maybe they had gotten their main concerns out already and didn't see the need to bring them up again, even for the benefit of the rest of the class.

On the whole, though, I think this idea for an assignment is a good one with some tweaking. I think I will take attendance at the group presentations next time instead of just requiring that they have at least two responses to presentations in their journals. Too many students just came for two presentations, and by the end of the term attendance at the group meetings was way too low. I also think, as noted above, that I may have the groups discuss something we have already talked about in class, thereby encouraging them to think further about it and give comments/questions they didn't have a chance to in class (or hadn't thought of yet). The idea of having them give me questions/comments before the lecture didn't quite work out as I had hoped, and thus the need to do the presentations before the lecture is lessened.

http://weblogs.elearning.ubc.ca/chendricks/2006/09/what_is_class_time_f

After a long hiatus for the summer, I am finally getting back to posting on this blog--I was working on research as well as moving to a new apartment, and so my thoughts on teaching were not as prolific as usual during the past six weeks or so.

I am posting one idea I put in place in one of my courses for how to make class time more than lecture with some discussion within the big class group thrown in. I had considered student presentations, but given that my Social and Political Philosophy class has 60 students this term, and given that the term is only 13 weeks long, it's hard to fit in 60 presentations. Another option that I've used in the past is group presentations, where groups of two-three students work together to present something to the rest of the class. In the past I've been able to do that because I've had break-out discussion sections in addition to the lecture, and the presentations could happen in separate discussion groups. That worked well because

then several presentations could happen at the same time. But it requires the discussion-group setup, which my course this term doesn't have.

I considered breaking the class into two groups for the last four weeks of the term, having the T.A. lead one group and me the other. For those days, there would be lecture for 30-45 minutes, then the groups would break out and have presentations the rest of the time (a 75-minute class). But I couldn't get an extra room near the original one, and I didn't have enough T.A. hours to have the T.A. run these. Logistical difficulties led to another idea.

This term I decided to try the following. The class is broken up into 8 groups of 7 (there are about 55-56 students out of 60 after the first week). Once a week for 7 weeks, one student per group writes a two-page summary of part of the assigned text, along with a question/comment/criticism for group discussion. For the first 15 minutes of class once a week, we start by meeting in the 8 groups and one student per group leads the group in a discussion of the text. These 8 groups all meet in the same room as our big class, and the discussions are all going on at the same time. This means I can't give any marks for the presentation--I can't hear them all--only the written portion. The students sign up for the weeks/texts they want to present on (one student per group per week, so they have to negotiate who gets to do Plato, Marx, Hobbes, etc.).

I also ask them to send to me, via email, a shortened version of their question/comment on the text, no later than noon on the day before class when they'll be presenting. This way I can incoporate some of the questions/comments/criticisms into the lecture--there will be 8 sets of comments for each presentation day, and each student will only get to hear those of the person in their group. So I can share some of the other ones with the rest of the class during the lecture.

We start our first presentations in two days. So far the only difficulties have been in explaining the system (sounds complicated at first, but it's really not that bad), and getting students to sign up for the first one.

I'm hoping to accomplish the following objectives with this assignment:

1. Be able to incorporate more of students' thoughts into how I structure the lecture before I get there

2. Get more comments from students who might otherwise be silent in class

3. Start the class meeting with discussion to set more of a participatory tone for the class meeting--maybe will increase participation later in the class?

4. Encourage students to see themselves and each other as good resources for philosophical questions/insights

5. Demonstrate the values of small-group philosophical discussion, what it does differently and better than instructor lecturing (which, of course, has its own benefits and its own place).

http://weblogs.elearning.ubc.ca/chendricks/2006/07/what_is_class_time_f

Barbara Ganley posts a few ideas in response to a question she says she gets regularly: if your students are spending time discussing outside of class (through blogs, discussion boards, or otherwise), then what goes on during class time when discussion would otherwise take place? I am interested in the question of "what is class time for," not because I have or am planning to take discussion out of the class meeting and put it into blogs or discussion boards instead, but simply as a general question: what is the best use of class time for the sake of promoting learning (especially in philosophy courses)?

I am likely not alone in that most of what I experienced in courses in Philosophy (and many other disciplines) as a student (and later, as a TA) was class time taken up by two activities: lecture and (if we were lucky) discussion. Each of these varies in nature, but I think can still be categorized under the same general rubric.

For example, "lecture" can include, among other things:

* the instructor explicating assigned readings, films, artworks, experiences, etc.

* the instructor discussing new applications of what has been read, experienced

* the instructor discussing how what has been read, experienced, etc. can be used to solve particular problems

* the instructor giving a "reading" or "interpretation" of assigned readings, experiences, etc.

* the instructor explaining results of his/her own research

* a guest lecturer doing one or more of the above

* student presentations doing one or more of the above

In-class "discussion" can include, among other things:

* the instructor asking students questions and eliciting responses

* the students asking the instructor questions

* both of the above can be focused on getting something "right," or on criticizing, coming up with new interpretations, applications, etc.

* the students discussing the assigned readings, etc., amongst themselves

* the students working together on an assignment

In my experience taking and acting as a TA for philosophy courses, class time mostly consisted of the instructor explicating the readings (which were often complicated), giving an interpretation and criticism of the arguments therein, and discussing how these arguments can be applied to new contexts. If there was discussion, it consisted largely of students asking questions of the instructor for clarification purposes, sometimes for criticism. Small-group discussion amongst students took place at designated times, called "discussion sections" (once per week, guided by a TA).

I have kept this basic format in my own teaching, partly out of habit and partly because it is what I know best. But a reflective teaching practice requires thought about what these uses of class time do, what one's objectives are for the course, and whether these strategies or something else would be more conducive to fulfilling those objectives. I am just in the early stages of reflecting on these issues, so I expect that this theme of the use of class time will become something of a series in this blog, as I think further and experiment.



Some preliminary thoughts on various uses of class time and what they might do, corresponding to learning objectives. Clearly, a variety of uses is often going to be best, if for no other reason than that students (and instructors) get tired of the same thing day in and day out. Which combination one uses depends on one's objectives.

1. Lectures explicating assigned readings

Pros

Can be very helpful when philosophical texts contain complex arguments that can be easily misunderstood if not thought through carefully. Important if one wants to ensure that the class is working from the same starting point when criticizing or applying arguments. Can help struggling students avoid giving up when they can't understand something easily on their own.

Cons

Can promote the sense that students don't need to read the assigned texts because they will get the overview in class. One can address this with quizzes or some other carrot or stick for encouraging reading, but such strategies can seem like "busywork" imposed from the outside resembling grade school or high school. (It would of course be ideal if students would read the assigned texts because they are interested...which is another topic entirely.)

2. Lectures criticizing/giving new applications for assigned readings.

Pros

Complementary to #1 in that critiques and applications can be a helpful way to engage in explication. A good way to "model" philosophical thinking and argumentation, showing how to approach a text critically and with an eye to its potential import for new contexts and problems.

Cons

Without also doing some explication, there is a danger of losing students if one jumps right into criticism or application, if those students don't grasp the basics in the first place.

** General reflections on both 1 and 2 **

Structuring class time and coursework around readings by other philosophers gives a certain picture of philosophical work: that it involves reading and criticizing works by a certain group of people from certain parts of the world called "philosophers" (those who are part of the "canon" or have been published in select journals). It gives the sense that one is only doing philosophical work when one reads and comments on the arguments of these people.

This may in some sense be an accurate picture of the field--much of what those of us who call ourselves philosophers do is to comment on the work of others. And it is true that in order to do philosophy well at any sort of high level one must be familiar with much of the work that has gone before--understanding the terms, methods, and ways the problems and responses are structured often depends significantly on familiarity with the "classic texts" that set out the terms of the debate. Plus, such familiarity helps one recognize which paths in addressing problems have been tried and proved unsuccessful, in order to avoid committing the same mistakes over and over again. (Still, there is something to be said for revisiting such "mistakes," because perhaps there is promise there that has been overlooked!)

But most of our students will not end up being professional philosophers; and for them, I think it's important to impart the value of philosophical thinking as it applies to their own lives and the work they end up doing in the future. How can we connect the practice of reading and commenting on the arguments of others remote in time and place from our students with the practice of thinking philosophically about their own lives and work?

One strategy could be for the instructor to try to give and/or solicit from students ideas on how the arguments and issues being discussed impinge on wider practices that students may be involved in. But might we not also include in some way a discussion or assignment where students come up with problems they are interested in and discuss how to approach them philosophically, instead of only doing philosophy by looking at the problems in the "classic texts" and how those philosophers answered them?

This is all only a beginning...much more to come in future entries!

http://weblogs.elearning.ubc.ca/chendricks/2006/06/why_blog_part_i.html

Setting up and maintaining a blog requires a considerable commitment of time and energy. What reasons are there in support of investing one's resources to such an enterprise (given all the other things in professional and personal life that need attention as well)? I spent several years occasionally visiting other people's blogs, and then the past few months doing so much more regularly (through an RSS reader). Why not just continue to be a passive ingester of the thoughts and ideas of others? Why embark on the path of adding one's own into the mix (beyond commenting on others' blogs, without having one of one's own)?

This question is about why teachers/scholars might want to spend the time to blog, rather than one focused on why blogs might be useful as part of coursework for students. Here I post some of my initial thoughts on the question, to be supplemented later as I get more blogging experience (thus the "part I" in the title!).

This self-reflective question has been asked by numerous bloggers, of course, but also by those who have a blog devoted to reflections on teaching and learning. Wendy's EdTechBlog has a brief entry on this question. Anne Davis (blog: EduBlog Insights) has a post that lists reasons why one might blog as a teacher for reflection and sharing/learning from others, as well as why one might start to use blogs with students. I also found a link from Pedablogy that links to several discussions and comments on the question--great stuff! (I post the Pedablogy link instead of the other original discussions, b/c it has them all together in one place!)

Here are some of my own preliminary thoughts...

1. Reflection, analysis, evaluation are important to improving teaching. I often find that if I don't write down what worked well or not so well in my courses while they were going on, and ideas for future changes, I would forget it for the next time and repeat mistakes (or fail to make changes I had thought of earlier). I used to keep a notebook in which I would, when I remembered, record some thoughts on what was going well or not so well in my courses, and ideas for changing things in the future. This notebook was not always readily available (being sometimes at home, sometimes at the office...I suppose I could have carried it everywhere I went!), and if I were looking for entries on a particular course or assignment. I would have to flip through the dated entries to find it. A blog is similar in some respects, in that it is sorted by date; but of course many blog programs also allow one to sort by category. The date sorting is useful for one to be able to follow the progression of one's thoughts over time; but this is not always what one wants. The key, then, is to organize one's categories on the blog to make finding relevant entries fairly easy.

I also used to keep notes in a file folder focused on "ideas for change for courses," and when I remembered to do so I'd look at those notes while designing my courses each term. This, of course, can also be incorporated into the categories of a blog. But would a blog be *better* in some way than a paper file? Perhaps at least in that it is available wherever one can connect to the internet.

Having read a number of blogs by other educators focused on teaching and learning, I have seen how they have engaged in active reflection in their blog posts--on their own beliefs and values as teachers, how they put these into practice in their work, what they have learned from others (including their students), what engages them about teaching and learning, etc. These kinds of reflections are things I used to do occasionally in my own head without writing them down, or only recording them when I need to prepare a statement of my teaching philosophy. But I think, without having done any research on the issue, that such reflection can help one improve teaching by being conscious of what one is doing and why, and whether or not one's teaching and learning activities support and further one's goals.

Might blogging help one engage further in this kind of reflection? I think yes, if one is inclined to be reflective already. The blog is there already, and public--giving one a sense of some level of pressure to put something on it. Perhaps the blog isn't read by many people, but the fact that it could be read by even one other person provides a sense that one should put something there that would be useful for someone else to read. Reading others' reflections on their own teaching and learning activities has been useful for sparking my own; so perhaps I can do this for someone else. Which brings me to #2...

2. Having read other edublogs and finding them helpful (for encouraging reflection on my own part, for giving me ideas on innovative pedagogical methods, and more), I felt it important to try to give back. If I can learn so much from others, why not share the wealth? I have found in the course of my teaching career (nearly 10 years now) that I learn most about teaching and learning from other people, from discussing with them what they do as teachers and why. I would LOVE to have had blogs to appeal to as a graduate student learning to teach (as I love to have them now!). Which connects to #3...

3. Connecting to a community: in the limited experience I've had reading other blogs on teaching and learning, there seems to be a sense of community fostered that can lead to greater chances for discussion in the future, in the blogosphere and in person.

4. Even if no one else is reading, the blog is a fantastic space to think things out for oneself...getting back to the "reflection" piece. There is an interesting mixture of "privateness" and "publicness" to blog posting, if one's blog is not read by lots and lots of people. There is a sense in which it is for oneself, a place to keep one's ideas and thoughts for future reference; and yet it is potentially going to be read by others, so it needs to be relatively clear and organized (if one is concerned at all about it being useful to others). It seems to me it will be a great way to organize my thoughts, ideas, reflections on practice, values, etc., for myself--and if it's interesting to others, well, great!

That's probably plenty for the moment, and in the coming weeks and months I'll update this list with new ideas. Please comment with your reasons for blogging as a teacher (apart from why use blogs in courses).

http://weblogs.elearning.ubc.ca/chendricks/2006/06/pedablogypopular_nam

I just found several blogs with a title similar to mine: Pedablogy. So there are several of us out there playing around with (bad?) puns!

One blog called Pedablogy is subtitled "Musings on the art and craft of teaching (colored by my view of the world as an economist)". I found especially interesting his discussions of "what is a college course," and considering the relationships between class time and texts. I have myself been thinking I need to reflect on (and post) something about the following: what do I think students should be getting out of coming to the class meeting? It should be more than repeat of the text, obviously, but what goals do I want to set for class time? That will be considered in a future post....

Another Pedablogy blog is by Seaghan Moriarty in Galway, Ireland, and is subtitled "An eclectic collection of articles, links and remarks about the potential of ICT to enhance education."

Finally, there is Pedablogue, a blog that defines "pedablogy" as entries in Pedablogue. The author of this blog is a Professor of English, but he is going on sabbatical (and so is his blog) until August 2007. I think the archives will remain in place, however.

http://weblogs.elearning.ubc.ca/chendricks/2008/12/whose_discussion_que

One of the courses I teach on a regular basis has a significant discussion component--after a two hour lecture each week, I and a group of about 20 students meet twice a week for 1.5 hours each to discuss the texts and lecture. I have found that I tend to develop a pattern of encouraging discussion on the questions I'm interested in, and somehow am not doing enough to generate discussion on students' own questions and ideas. I am not doing this on purpose, but this pattern has inevitably developed each time I've taught this course (this is my third year doing so).

Each year I ask that students come to class ready with something to contribute to discussion, be it a question or a comment, related to the text or the lecture or earlier discussions or just the topic in general. And each year, by the middle of the year (it's a year-long course), we have fallen into the pattern of no one having much to say but me. I ask at the beginning of each class if anyone has anything they'd like to ensure we talk about, and usually there is little to nothing. So then we go on to discuss the questions I have already planned.

I think I am discouraging them from taking the initiative in discussions without really recognizing that I am doing so (until I reflect on it, like I am doing now!). By having several things ready to talk about beforehand, and always moving straight into those when no one has anything else to say, I am setting in place a pattern where students can just wait and see what I want to discuss. They don't have to take the initiative because I always do so. This is understandable, of course: if I don't have anything ready, then we might just sit there looking at each other in uncomfortable silence. To avoid this, I have lots of discussion questions and topics ready to go. But it sets up a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy: out of concern that others won't have much to say, I prepare a lot, thereby ensuring that others don't need to have much to say and thus don't do so.

Besides not knowing if what I am bringing up for discussion is engaging to them or not, and not encouraging the opportunity for them to come up with things to discuss that are, by guiding discussion in this way I am also setting up the expectation that they don't need to really contribute that much overall. I am in charge of the topics we discuss, and since I've thought about them beforehand, I have the most to say about them. Students who are hearing these topics for the first time may not be as ready to talk about them as if they had thought them up on their own. Further, the atmosphere in the classroom tends to be less student-driven overall as a result: their only role is to respond to questions I bring up, and for many of them, not even that--too many students sit back passively for much of the time rather than taking an active part. And I am encouraging this by taking on the role of the one who is in charge of the discussion. Further, it can sound like I have something in mind that I want them to say in response to the topics I bring up (since I've thought about them beforehand), even though I try very hard to avoid these kinds of topics and questions and only ask open-ended ones that I don't have a clear answer to myself.

How to remedy this situation? Some preliminary ideas:

1. Hold students to the requirement that they come to class with something to talk about, perhaps by calling on them, or asking them to turn in their question/topic/comment/idea in writing. Ideally, it would be good if they could do so before the seminar, so I could take these into account when planning the seminar meeting. I have tried something like this before with having a few students per day responsible for a question/topic for discussion, and requiring that they send this to me via email before our meeting. It worked fairly well, though often students have questions/comments that I myself have little to say about, and that don't generate much discussion from others either. But at least it's an attempt. In the previous course I just had each student responsible for one day out of the whole course (b/c there were many students); whereas for this course each one would have to have a question/comment about every 2-3 weeks. That might be doable, but it is still a fair bit of work for me when preparing the seminar if I get the questions beforehand.

2. I have tried in the past to have student presentations in this course, where each student is responsible for speaking for about 5 minutes, giving a question for discussion and some background on their views about it, why they came up with it/found it important, etc. This has only been partially successful. Rarely has it generated much discussion in other students, and instead it tends to be me and the student presenter discussing their question.

3. I might try to do something like the student presentations in #2 in small groups, where other students might be more comfortable responding, and more likely to take the initiative b/c I am not there to fill in the silence.

For the spring term for this course, I think I'll try #3, and think about #1...

http://weblogs.elearning.ubc.ca/chendricks/2008/06/foucault_and_kant_on

I am working on a book review of Foucault and Freedom by Johanna Oksala for a journal, and in the third part she argues that "by linking his thought to the Enlightenment, Foucault makes the normative move of adopting the ideals associated with it--critical reason and personal autonomy--as the implicit ground on which his critiques of domination, abusive forms of power and reason rest. The Enlightenment provides him with the historical--not transcendental-- values on which to base his critiques" (187).

This is a complicated and controversial point, but it is similar to an argument I made in a recent article in the journal Philosophy and Social Criticism, that in emphasizing the connection between his own work and that of Kant, Foucault may have in part been trying to encourage an audience of fellow theorists to consider how their theories can address and impact concerns in their own historical present (as Kant did in some of his texts). Oksala argues that for both Foucault and Kant, philosophy can have an important social and politcal role as critical thought aimed at promoting human freedom and autonomy. I think much more could be said than either I or Oksala have said about how Kant's critiques and his other texts use philosophy as critical thought, as a means of promoting freedom. The point is not only to find the conditions of possibility of knowledge and morality (I leave aside the 3rd critique for the moment, as I am not much familiar with it), but in so doing to promote freedom by releasing us from heteronymy and dogmatism. What further values could we promote or hinder in philosophical pursuit of truth or criticisms thereof? Is it that the question of truth is enough in itself to drive philosophical thinking, or should we consider what else we can do with it? Can doing and teaching philosophy aim towards human freedom? If so, what kind, how, and why is this important? How can we avoid upholding practices and discourses that hinder it? (A Foucauldian question.) What role does the pursuit of truth itself play in hindering freedom? (Another Foucauldian question.)

http://weblogs.elearning.ubc.ca/chendricks/2008/06/back_from_maternity_

Well, well...it's been awhile. Far too long. I have been busy at home with a new baby boy, and have completely let this blog go. Letting blogs die a quiet death is a common blogger experience, I think. But this one is not quite dead yet. I am back from maternity leave, and though much of this summer will be spent working on research, I plan to add some new posts on teaching here as well. Coming back to the classroom after a year without teaching is, I hope, going to be an interesting and refreshing experience. I am excited to start up again, and catch up on the world of pedagogy blogging, in philosophy and other subjects.

My research this summer will focus on a paper about Michel Foucault's views of the political role of intellectuals. This, actually, is relevant to teaching philosophy: part of what I am thinking about in that paper is what philosophers might do to "educate" their audience, to bring about social and political change, to be active citizens in their own communities. So I will be posting a bit about that, as well as about my thoughts on preparing for my upcoming courses.

http://weblogs.elearning.ubc.ca/chendricks/2008/06/students_own_philoso

I have sometimes wondered just why it is that introductory philosophy courses rarely focus on students' own philosophical views in the sense of asking them to come up with their own answers to the "big questions" without having read the "classics" beforehand. Or, in the sense of having a capstone assignment where they are to synthesize what they have studied and their own views into a philosophy of their own. Sometimes I do the former, but only in the form of short questions during the first or second class, to get people thinking, and then we drop this pretty much entirely when it comes time to start reading the major philosophical works on the reading list.

It's almost as if the idea of soliciting student's views is just to get them interested in the topics before we get down to the business of "real" philosophy, which consists of reading works by those who have been given the title of "philosophers" by persons in academic institutions. Certainly, reading the canon is important for numerous reasons, not least of which is that it is necessary to really grasp well arguments by later philosophers that are based on earlier texts, arguments, and terms of questions and disputes. But if part of the point of teaching philosophy is to encourage students to think more critically and carefully and reflectively about their own lives and the world in which they live, why do we not spend more time focused on what they actually think and believe?

Of course, we do do so in the sense that we ask them to comment on the philosophical texts and arguments we read, and on those of their fellow students and of instructors. But why is it that we often *start* with the works of those who have earned the title of "philosopher," rather than with the students' own views? I think one reason, for myself, has been because doing so may allow students to see examples of good (and some bad) arguments to help guide them when it comes to their own thinking. And because it may get them further along the path by letting them see in what areas arguments have already been made that do or do not work. Add to these reasons, of course, the inertia of simply teaching the same way I have been taught in the past, and thinking this must somehow be a good thing since that's what others have done. That, of course, is not a good enough reason, though.

It's just something I want to keep thinking about. I am certainly not contemplating jettisoning the reading of classic philosophical texts, nor modern ones by "philosophers," for the sake of just focusing on students' ideas. Rather, I'm wondering why I don't do more of the latter to supplement the former. Might there not be some value in doing so that I and my students are missing out on?

I imagine there are more people out there doing this than I am aware of, and my own lack in this area may not reflect at all a general trend...but my own limited experience indicates that more often than not, students are not encouraged to focus on their own philosophies and instead spend most of their time reading and commenting on those of the canon.