Departments of Philosophy and Biological Sciences
Illinois State University
Teaching Portfolio
I view teaching as a process whose ultimate goal is empowering students to become "life-long learners". This is best promoted through an interactive, collaborative, and inquiry-based pedagogy. Such a teaching strategy treats learning as a social phenomenon, and engenders in students a heightened sense of intellectual curiosity, a life-long desire to learn, and a sense of personal responsibility for their own intellectual development. Encouraging students to participate in an intellectual community also elevates their self-confidence and self-respect, and encourages them to cooperate with others.
My primary focus is not only on teaching the "mere facts" alone, but also enabling students to think critically about the production and organization of scientific and philosophical knowledge. Generally, I begin my courses by exposing students to a controversy or a dispute over a theoretical issue. Various schools of thought on the issue are introduced and discussed. However, I anchor the discussion with what I take to be the stronger positions and their supporting arguments in each area. While presenting alternative points of view is important, I believe it is a mistake for teachers to be so evenhanded that the students loose sight of how to come to a conclusion about what might be a better position. Students should not leave the course at the end of the semester thinking that what they have learned about Philosophy (or Biology) is correct just because the teacher said so. On the other hand, students should not end the term thinking that "it's all just a matter of opinion." Teaching students not only what the stronger positions are, but how and why they are stronger allows them to develop a coherent philosophical (or biological) framework as opposed to just a list of possible solutions to important problems.
The critical philosophical thinking skills developed in my classes are transferable to other courses, disciplines, and the world beyond the academy. Among these skills are: the ability to analyze concepts, arguments, and definitions; the capacity to organize ideas and issues; the capacity to deal with questions of value; the ability to extract what is essential from masses of information; the ability to synthesize a variety of perspectives or views into a unified whole; and the ability to express ideas in a clear and systematic manner. These skills promote the ability to recognize, understand, and solve problems; to establish reasonable standards of evidence; and to recognize, formulate, and resolve differences due to conflicts in basic assumptions or values.
My concern with students' intellectual development does not end with the class material. I also seek to develop in them an understanding of the way the professional intellectual community operates. I do this in a variety of ways; for example by organizing seminars and end-of-the semester conferences at which students present the results of independent research projects. In many of my Philosophy of Sciences courses, I provide opportunities for students to develop a familiarity with "professional" scientific practice by producing a blind peer reviewed journal for the course. The format of the journal is modeled after that of the well known interdisciplinary journal Behavior and Brain Sciences. Each student is asked to submit a "target article" focusing on issues suggested by the reading material in the course. Students submit these target articles to me electronically as HTML attachments to E-mail messages. I then post the articles as web pages linked to the table of contents page for the journal. Up to four people per target article are assigned to access these papers from the journal and write critical response papers focusing on the content of the target articles. These critical response papers are also posted to the journal on the World Wide Web. The authors of the target articles are then invited to revise their original papers and re-submit them. At the end of the semester each student reads all of the final submissions and selects the best ones for publication. The authors of these papers are then encouraged to present their work at the university's Undergraduate Research Symposium.
Computer based assignments, such as the "journal" described above, as well as online discussions and web-page development, help to develop basic skills that contribute to students' success beyond the academy. I have spent a great deal of time over the last two years investigating and experimenting with a variety of new instructional technologies. The goal of this research has been to determine which instructional technology applications could be modified or created for use in my philosophy courses. Developing a dependable and effective, high quality, technology enhanced pedagogy requires considerable effort in several different areas. A great deal of care must be taken to determine both when technology will actually enhance the pedagogy and then what technological application to use in order to bring about the desired objectives. The use of instructional technology is, of course, not always appropriate.
Seventy-five percent of my teaching responsibilities lie within the Department of Philosophy. The remaining twenty-five percent of my instructional obligation is within the Department of Biological Sciences. The courses I teach are mandated primarily by the needs of these departments. Within the Department of Philosophy, I teach courses at all levels - from introductory courses in Philosophy and courses designed primarily for "General Education", to more advanced, "specialty" courses.
At the Introductory/General Education level, I teach Philosophy 101 (Basic Issues in Philosophy), Philosophy 110 (Thinking Logically), and Philosophy 138 (Moral and Social Values). Philosophy 110 has played a vital role in the University's General Education program. This course served as an alternative to some of the mathematics courses in the "Quantitative Reasoning" portion of the program. Under the new General Education program (enacted in 1998), Philosophy 110 will be replaced by Philosophy 112. I will be one of the faculty members primarily responsible for offering this course. In addition to logic, I will also be responsible for Philosophy 150 (Science and Human Culture), a course I designed and piloted (Philosophy 189.12) for the new General Education Program. (See Appendix E for a list of courses developed or redesigned.)
At the more advanced levels of instruction, I am primarily responsible for all of the department's offerings in Philosophy of Science. The department's principle course in this area is Philosophy 250 (Philosophy of Science). I am also responsible for teaching Philosophy 202 (Sex, Values, and Human Nature). I helped design this course with two of my colleagues as part of the new General Education program. The course is designed to be co-taught by at least 2 faculty. I have taught Philosophy 202 (under the Philosophy 138 course number) in a "pilot version" twice and plan to teach it at least once every three semesters for the foreseeable future.
The department's 300 level offerings in the Philosophy of Science are currently very sparse. I expect this to change as the department redesigns its curriculum over the next two or three years. At the 300 level, I taught Philosophy 350 (Topics in the History of Philosophy) as a course on Scientific Explanation (PHI 350.08).
My teaching obligations in the Department of Biological Sciences are equally varied. My responsibilities have included Biology 100 (Introduction to Biological Sciences), Biology 307 (Methods in the Teaching of Biology), and Biology 390 (Evolution). In addition to classroom instruction, I am also responsible for grading questions on both the Ph.D. and M.S. Candidacy Exams for students in the Biological Sciences. I also serve as an advisor on thesis committees and sit on the Biological Sciences Ad Hoc Committee on General Education.
Please see Appendix A for a list of all courses taught and Appendix B for representative samples of syllabi and course materials.
I take great pride in my teaching and approach every opportunity to improve my performance in the classroom enthusiastically. I frequently attend University presentations on teaching such as those sponsored by the Center for Teaching, Learning & Technology (CTLT). I attend meetings of both the American Philosophical Association and the International Society for the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology, where I have both presented and participated in panels, seminars, and workshops on teaching. I make use of student and peer evaluation during the semester and at the conclusion of every semester. I also read educational texts and journals pertaining to the education of students in my field and of college-level students more generally, including Teaching Philosophy, Science Educator, and Biology Teacher.
A list of presentation I have given on campus, in the community, and at national meetings is included in Appendix F.
1. While I have advised many students in independent academic work outside the classroom (See Appendix D), I would like to devote additional time and energy to developing more exciting and intellectually challenging student research projects. I will do this by modifying the methodology of some of my own research to involve students in more important and truly consequential ways. I will also collaborate with colleagues on the science faculty who work with students routinely in a lab setting to learn techniques and strategies.
2. Science Studies is a growing, thriving academic discipline with profound relevance to the everyday lives of my students who must live and compete in the information age. I will work with faculty in other departments (History, Sociology, Education) to develop in students (especially science students) a keen interest in the Philosophy and History of Science.
3. Over the past three years, I have developed an expertise in the use of instructional technology in delivering my courses. I have mastered the basic technical aspects of using computer assisted learning and the internet to augment course material and to facilitate interaction between students, between students and the instructor, and between students and the "outside world". At this point I plan to explore and develop more sophisticated and creative uses of instructional technology. I would like to move beyond the basics of web pages, discussion lists, and email. The Department of Philosophy recently hired an expert in the development of web-based curricula. I plan to work extensively with this individual over the next two years. I have also sought out other members of the faculty with similar interests and will collaborate with them.
