John M. DePoe
Teaching Resources
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My Teaching Philosophy
Teaching philosophy is a great and wonderful privilege, and I take my responsibility as a philosophy instructor very seriously. In all my philosophy courses I accomplish two goals. First, I show my students that studying philosophy is a valuable endeavor. Second, I equip them with the right tools and information to succeed in pursuing the philosophical topics for that class.
I don’t think there is single strategy that must be used to accomplish my goals in every class with every student, but there are a number of different teaching tools that I have used, which have helped me achieve these goals. Leading by example is one important means for reaching my goals. In class, I let my students know that I find the subject we are studying to be important and I go out of my way to show them my own interest in our class. I also illustrate careful critical thinking skills often by identifying the key premises and conclusions that make up the central arguments for each topic. Another tool in my teaching methodology is to use clear examples often from popular movies (like the Matrix) to explain philosophical concepts and arguments. I’ve also found that many students more easily grasp the course material when I make use of the board to write out definitions, list the component parts of an argument, or draw a picture to convey crucial ideas and thought experiments (such as the primary/ secondary quality distinction or the Chinese room argument). I keep the flow of most classes dynamic by advancing classes along by posing questions to the class that lead discussions seamlessly from one topic to the next. Class discussion and inquiry are a valuable component for developing good philosophical skills in students. There are, of course, other tools that I use in teaching philosophy. What I want to convey here is that I use a variety of teaching methods to accomplish my goals in teaching philosophy.
Typically I increase incrementally the philosophical concepts and skills as I progress through a course. Often I implement this by making explicit the kinds of arguments that are being employed in a given topic or by showing common themes that occur throughout the course. After classes acquire ample facility with certain philosophical concepts and skills, I build on them to increase the concepts and skills in latter parts of the course.
Most class assignments consist of either reading philosophy texts or writing philosophy essays. As much as possible, I assign primary texts (both classic and contemporary) as the readings for all of my courses. To help students, I sometimes provide an outline of difficult texts to help them. In class, I often use crucial passages from primary texts to explain and develop key ideas and arguments. Although having students write philosophical essays often requires more work on my end as a grader, I have found that these assignments are often the best way for students to demonstrate what they have learned in philosophy courses. The writing assignments are normally intended to encourage clear and critical thinking of important philosophers and/or philosophical arguments.
Finally, I teach my undergraduate courses for a broad audience. I believe that philosophy has something to offer for all students, no matter what their major is or what vocation they are pursuing.
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Teaching Evaluations
Here is a summary of my teaching evaluations. This summary is a nice digest of all my teaching evaluations. I would recommend reading the summary first, and then consulting the complete reports of each class (which I've provided below) as needed.
On the summary sheet, I refer to page numbers of the original teaching evaluations. Below, I've provided pdf copies of the complete teaching evaluations to which those page numbers refer.
Thank-a-teacher-letter: A letter I received through the University of Iowa's thank-a-teacher program.
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Course Syllabi
The following course syllabi reflect some of the considerable thought I’ve put into one way of teaching these courses. All of these syllabi are tentative, and almost all of them will need to be adjusted to fit the requirements, expectations, philosophical interests, and the aptitudes of different student bodies that will vary from university to university, department to department, and student body to student body. Furthermore, these syllabi do not reflect the only courses that I am interested in or capable of teaching, nor do they reflect the only way I am prepared to teach these courses.
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