Learning about Learning Transformed the Way I Teach

Introduction

Being in academia, we are specially positioned to make a meaningful impact on the lives of our students. How often does anyone get the opportunity to spend a few hours per week, over the course of several months, educating, influencing, and shaping the way someone thinks? As teachers, we can not only provide knowledge but also impart critical thinking skills that students can use throughout their lives.

Given how meaningful teaching is to me, I’ve delved into the world of pedagogy. In this post, I’d like to share some of the insights I’ve gained.

Shifting My Approach to Course Design

In the past, the way I thought about course design started with the philosophical content I was interested in, and then the course was structured around that content. It was teacher-centered and content-driven. However, I’ve since reframed my approach to focus on students’ needs first. Now, I ask myself, “What skills and content are important for them to learn?” Starting with these learning goals, I then planned assessments, content, and activities aligned with those goals. I’ve also been giving more attention to skills rather than just content. For me, the value of philosophy lies in cultivating reasoning skills, not memorizing all the details of various thought experiments or specific objections to different philosophical positions. By designing a course well, we can tailor the content to be relevant to students’ lives, connect it to practical issues, and equip students with skills they can use long after the semester ends.

From Lecturing to Active Learning

I’ve also re-examined how I approached in-class teaching. In the past, I equated good teaching with good lecturing. My lectures occasionally included questions or polls. However, looking into pedagogical studies, I’ve learned that having students passively listen to a long lecture does not give them a deep understanding of the material. Instead, it is in their active “doing” that deepens learning. As one philosopher remarked to me, “Sometimes, the best way for students to learn is for us to shut up.” This got me going down the rabbit hole of looking into active learning strategies—using engaging class activities that foster student learning.

Esther Goh and I at the Rutgers Active Learning 101 Workshop.

Key Lessons from Various Learning Communities

I now want to turn to some key lessons I’ve learned from various learning communities. I hope this will whet your appetites and point towards some places to begin your pedagogical journey.

1. Life Worth Living (LWL) Pedagogy Fellowship (from Yale University)

Occasionally, there are external opportunities, such as the LWL pedagogy Fellowship. Part of the program included a 1-week pedagogy workshop. One of my biggest takeaways was to use more activities that give students space to reflect and share their thoughts with one another instead of constantly lecturing.

One memorable activity was the Big Paper Silent Conversation. A single sentence was written on a large sheet of paper posted on the wall. Participants would silently write responses and then move around to comment on each other’s thoughts. This got us all out of our chairs to engage with the topic, enabled simultaneous conversations, and made participation easy as it had low social stakes (since it was hard to keep track of who wrote what).

The Big Paper Silent Conversation Activity at the Life Worth Living Pedagogy Workshop.

2. American Association of Philosophy Teachers (AAPT)

The AAPT runs the APA-AAPT Teaching Hubs (held at APA conferences) and has its own biennial AAPT workshop-conference. Sessions are typically highly interactive. Audience members will actively participate throughout the session and have practical takeaways. By attending these, I’ve been able to integrate some ideas into my own course (such as using role-playing games in class).

The group of us who took part in the AAPT Teaching and Learning Seminar.

In addition, the AAPT hosts a Teaching and Learning Seminar, which runs concurrently with the biennial AAPT workshop-conference. The seminar only takes place in the morning, leaving afternoons free for participants to attend the conference. The seminar used various learning activities to help us understand backward course design and raised various considerations when creating assessments and activities. Here are two memorable activities.

1. 1. 1. This reflection exercise began with us sharing in small groups: “How did philosophy change your life?” (You can follow along: Reflect and jot down a few points!) We were then given a second question: “What do your students do to get an A in your class?” (jot down the assessments you use or plan to use). Many of us could see where this was going. The ways in which philosophy has brought value into our lives often do not correspond with how we have designed our course! Without proper course design, students can strive for an A, but the class would have no meaningful impact on their lives. This is why it is so important to use backward design, which begins by setting significant learning objectives and then proceeding ‘backward’ to create assessments and activities that align with those objectives.

1. 1. 2. Here’s another reflection exercise. Imagine meeting a former student of yours at a grocery store. They smile widely at you and say, “Hey [insert your name]! I remember your class and loved it! It …” What do you hope is the big impact that they would say you made in their lives? (jot down some points). We used this exercise to think more about significant learning objectives and what we want students to take away from our courses.

When I applied these exercises to my critical thinking course, I imagined various possible things that students could say. One objective I set was for students to learn how to collaborate and contribute constructively within a community. To achieve this, I designed my course around Team-Based Learning, a teaching strategy that emphasizes team collaboration in every class.

I assigned assessments to this objective by incorporating team quizzes, a team project, and frequent peer evaluation to ensure that all members actively contributed to discussions. Class activities were also designed to reinforce collaboration. For example, after learning about fallacies, groups created skits containing two hidden fallacies. They performed their skits while other groups tried to find the fallacies in their scripts.

My students performing their group skit while the other students try to find the fallacies hidden in their script.

3. Graduate Seminar on Teaching

Many graduate programs offer seminars on teaching philosophy. Mine was taught by Justin Kalef, our department’s Director of Teaching Innovation. Justin had been running pedagogy sessions for our department (e.g., how to design assessments in light of AI), and I consulted with him to learn more. So, naturally, I signed up for his seminar. The seminar covered topics like Bloom’s taxonomy, class policies, different assessment types, designing innovative activities, and non-traditional grading.

One of the most memorable lessons was that assessments can be a learning experience, not just an evaluative tool. One method involves team quizzes with answer-until-correct multiple-choice questions. Teams would discuss the answers and scratch off their answer on a scratchcard. The scratchcard provides immediate feedback on whether they got the answer right. If wrong, the team will keep discussing and re-attempt again (for half credit each time) until they identify the correct answer. This helps students to keep learning and builds their discussion skills. I was blown away by this, and I’ve seen positive results from using it in my classes.

A sample of the scratchcard from my class 

4. Active Learning Community at Rutgers

Universities often offer resources for teachers. In my case, Rutgers has an Active Learning Community of passionate teachers. Out of the various events I attended, one lesson that struck me the most came from a workshop that discussed social risks. Many students fear voicing their opinions in class. I am one of those who gets very stressed and gets a “mind freeze” whenever a professor cold calls me. The workshop introduced ways to lower social risks to encourage greater engagement and more productive discussions. We looked at multiple ways to do this, using anonymous responses or small group sharing. One of my favorite ideas is to get groups to write their thoughts/arguments on a paper or whiteboard. Then, groups will go around together to see what other groups came up with & write comments.

My students going about in groups to comment on each other’s argument maps.

Final Thoughts

I hope I’ve inspired you to seek out resources, whether via the AAPT or from your own department or university. In addition, I should mention that there are multiple gems in pedagogy journals, like the AAPT Studies in Pedagogy and Teaching Philosophy, that one could explore as well. These resources have shaped my journey to grow as an educator, and I hope you will find similar opportunities to keep growing and make a meaningful impact in your students’ lives.

Frederick Choo

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Frederick Choo is a philosophy PhD student at Rutgers University. His main interests are in ethics and philosophy of religion. His main hobbies are playing the acoustic guitar & playing counterstrike.