PHGA 8001 Seminar in Philosophical Education
Professor John Drummond
Spring 2009
Thursday, 2:00-4:00 PM
This seminar is required for all graduate students who will teach core
courses in the Philosophy Department. This means that it is required for
all students receiving financial aid and for those students who wish to teach
(as Teaching Associates) in subsequent years (assuming availability of course
sections). The course does not count toward the course requirement for
the Ph.D. program.
The seminar will focus on both the theory and practice of teaching philosophy
to undergraduates. Topics to be covered in class might include:
- Philosophy in the Jesuit Context: the role of a core curriculum in a
college curriculum; the role of philosophy in a core curriculum; the
significance of the Jesuit context.
- The content of Philosophy of Human Nature (freshman course) and of
Philosophical Ethics (sophomore course).
- Practicalities: thinking about course goals and objectives, organizing a
course and syllabus.
- Teaching Styles.
- Teaching Texts (Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Kant).
- Syllabus design: Philosophy of Human Nature.
- Syllabus design: Philosophical Ethics.
- More practicalities: blackboard (the old-fashioned kind—with chalk, now unfortunately replaced by whiteboards and those infernal markers),
handouts, Blackboard (the new, electronic kind) and other electronic resources, exams, writing
assignments, cheating, plagiarism.
- Writing in philosophy courses.
Students are encouraged to make suggestions about topics they would like
covered during the seminar.
Texts:
- Plato, Collected Dialogues (any edition)
- Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (any edition)
- Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy (any edition) or Discourse on Method (any edition)
- Kant, Groundwork for a Metaphysics of Morals (any edition)
- Ken Bain, What the Best College Teachers Do (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004)
- Peter Filene, The Joy of Teaching: A Practical Guide for New College Instructors (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 2005)
N.B. Since I assume everyone has the first four titles, only the last two have
been ordered for the bookstore. These titles are also available from amazon.com and
barnesandnoble.com.