Category Archives: Teaching

Starting to design a blended “Intro to Philosophy” course

Socrates Drinking Hemlock by Canova. Posted on Wikimedia Commons by Artgate Fondazione Cariplo, licensed CC BY-SA 3.0

Socrates Drinking Hemlock by Canova. Posted on Wikimedia Commons by Artgate Fondazione Cariplo, licensed CC BY-SA 3.0

 

I am scheduled to teach an Introduction to Philosophy course in May and June of 2015, and I am hoping to make it at least a partially “blended” course, meaning that it’s partly online, partly face-to-face. This one, the first time I am trying this sort of thing, will be mostly face-to-face, I think, because there is so much to learn about doing this sort of thing well that I want to start off kind of small.

I started designing this course last summer, when I took a workshop at UBC called “Teaching in a Blended Learning Environment” (which I am now co-facilitating in February and March of 2015). My blog posts related to my work in that course last summer can be found by clicking “T-BLE” in the tag cloud off to the right.

One of the resources I found very helpful from that course is “A Self-Directed Guide to Designing Courses for Significant Learning,” by Dee Fink (2005). She suggests that one engage in “backwards design” of courses, starting with what one hopes the students will be able to do as a result of taking the course, and working backwards from there to teaching and learning activities like assigned readings, assessments, etc. Which only makes sense when you think about it, really, but so often in the past I have started with the readings and assessments and then formulated the learning goals on the basis of those–if  students complete these readings and these assignments, what does it make sense to say they’ll be able to do? But why not start with the learning goals and then design the rest on the basis of that? Duh.

 

Situational Factors

Fink actually suggests one starts with “situational factors,” such as the size of the class, the likely knowledge of the students of the subject when they start, what expectations are there of this course from the perspective of the department or the university, what are the students’ learning goals and expectations, and more. I’ll just mention a couple of things along these lines about this Intro to Phil course:

  • This is a first-year course, with no prerequisites. Most students taking it will not have had any philosophy before, though there may be a few who took a philosophy class in high school. There are not likely to be many philosophy majors–by that I mean those who are in upper years who are taking this course during that time–because this course is not required for the philosophy major. Some students may, however, go on to become philosophy majors after their first exposure to philosophy.
  • Expectations of this course from the department:
    • This is one of two “introduction to philosophy” courses: PHIL 101 is broadly about metaphysics and epistemology and PHIL 102 (this course) is broadly about value theory (which can include ethics, social and political philosophy, and aesthetics).
    • Other than that, the only thing I think the department expects of this course is that we make it interesting enough that we could attract some students into taking more philosophy courses. There don’t seem to be a lot of specific expectations for PHIL 101 or 102.
  • Usually this class is between 75-150 students or so, but in the summer I think it will be capped at 40-45 maximum (I’m not certain about that, but it will likely be somewhere around that number, unless I also have a TA assigned, which I usually don’t for summer courses).
  • I don’t know what the students’ learning goals or expectations will be; I’d have to wait and ask them!
  • I taught this course most recently in the Fall of 2013; my course website for it can be seen here. It was focused on the topic of “what is philosophy and what is its value?” That is not really a value-theory-specific question, as one could approach that question in a course focused on numerous other areas in philosophy as well, but I asked students to read works in value theory in particular.

 

Learning goals/objectives

Fink suggests that one think about learning goals in a few different areas, listed below in bold and in italics. What I came up with is listed in normal font.

“A year (or more) after this course is over, I want and hope that students will be able to …”

  • Explain what makes a question a philosophical one as opposed to some other kind of question.
  • Describe at least two things that philosophers do.
  • Explain at least two ways in which they themselves use philosophical thinking or questions in their everyday lives.
  • Analyze and evaluate an argument in a passage of argumentative text: identify premises and conclusion and say whether the premises support the conclusion well or whether there are problems in the argument.
  • Participate in a discussion with others on philosophical issues or questions: clarify positions and arguments from themselves or others, criticize flawed arguments, present their own arguments, and do all this in a respectful fashion

 

Foundational Knowledge

What key information (e.g., facts, terms, formulae, concepts, principles, relationships, etc.) is/are important for students to understand and remember in the future? What key ideas (or perspectives) are important for students to understand in this course?

  • Arguments: being able to outline premises and conclusions in arguments; being able to evaluate premises and whether they support conclusions
  • Socrates and Plato (Euthyphro, Apology, Gorgias)
    • Socratic method and how it’s used in Euthyphro
    • Socrates as a “gadfly”
    • philosophy vs oratory, acc. to Socrates in Gorgias
  • Epicurus:
    • Static and kinetic pleasures
    • natural/necessary vs unnatural/unnecessary pleasures
  • Stoics:
    • How Stoics define virtue
    • Living according to nature
  • Mill & Singer
    • utilitarianism (act and rule)
    • applying utilitarian principles to the question of poverty, animal rights
  • Nussbaum:
    • Capabilities approach

I’m going to add to this list later, because I haven’t yet fully decided on which topics/readings to cover. Plus, I notice that I’m starting with topics/readings here and then designing learning objectives from those again. Honestly, for “foundational knowledge” I’m not sure how else to do it.

 

Application Goals

 What kinds of thinking are important for students to learn?

  • Critical thinking, in which students analyze and evaluate
  • Creative thinking, in which students imagine and create
  • Practical thinking, in which students solve problems and make decisions
  • What important skills do students need to gain?
  • Do students need to learn how to manage complex projects?

In PHIL 102:

  • Critical thinking: evaluating arguments that they read or hear from me or each other
  • Creative thinking: coming up with own arguments for own views, being able to defend one’s own views well with reasons and evidence
  • Practical thinking: trying to solve difficult philosophical and ethical problems; at least getting some clarity on these even though one might fully “solve” them

 

Integration Goals

What connections (similarities and interactions) should students recognize and make…:

  • Among ideas within this course?
  • Among the information, ideas, and perspectives in this course and those in other courses or areas?
  • Among material in this course and the students’ own personal, social, and/or work life?

In PHIL 102:

  • See that the different things philosophers talk about are nevertheless all somehow related such that we call them “philosophical” issues.
  • See how philosophical thinking and discussion is already part of their everyday lives, and how the work they do in class honing their thinking, discussing and writing skills can therefore apply in their lives beyond this class.
    • I’ll be asking students to attend a “philosophy café” or something similar, to see that philosophy is being done by people out in the community beyond just professional philosophers

 

Human Dimensions Goals

  • What could or should students learn about themselves?
  • What could or should students learn about understanding others and/or interacting with them?

In PHIL 102:

  • That they already do philosophy in their everyday lives, and that they can learn to think and write more clearly to do it better.
  •  That philosophical thinking and speaking and writing has value in their lives outside of this class.
  •  That they can disagree with others and do so respectfully in conversation and in writing, using the principle of charity and genuinely trying to come to agreement (but still respecting the other when they don’t agree).
  •  That even views that seem utterly foreign and strange can have value that they can see.

 

Caring Goals

 What changes/values do you hope students will adopt?

  • Feelings?
  • Interests?
  • Ideas?

In PHIL 102:

  • Ask, reflect on, and discuss more philosophical questions in their lives after the course.
  • Hopefully be more interested in philosophical questions outside the course, as they come up in their own lives.

 

“Learning-How-to-Learn” Goals

 What would you like for students to learn about:

  • how to be good students in a course like this?
  • how to learn about this particular subject?
  • how to become a self-directed learner of this subject, i.e., having a learning agenda
  • of what they need/want to learn, and a plan for learning it?

 

In PHIL 102

  • Be able to identify main arguments/main ideas in philosophical readings on their own, and take notes on this
  • Be able to outline premises and conclusions of such arguments in order to better analyze them and consider whether the arguments are strong or not
  • Identify what they do/do not understand and determine what they have to do to learn what they do not understand
    • How to do this? I was thinking maybe short quizzes in class or online, or clicker-type questions done using an online polling tool like “Poll Everywhere.” That would help them see what they don’t quite get yet, but how to help them grasp what they need to do in order to learn it?

 

Reflections on all this

I like that Fink suggests looking at many different kinds of learning goals. But the result of going through all this is that I have, what, like 20-30 learning objectives? That’s too overwhelming for students, I think. In the course I taught most recently, I had 8 learning objectives, and that already seemed like a lot (you can see the syllabus for that course here).

So I’m not sure I’ll put all of these on the syllabus, but rather combine some, pick and choose from others. But it’s a good exercise to go through them all oneself to help in course design. If I want the course to do all of these things for the students, I need to consider how I’m going to make sure it does so. Activities, readings, etc. should be directed towards fulfilling these learning goals.

Authentic assessment and philosophy

In order to prepare for a meeting of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Community of Practice, I recently started reading a few articles on “authentic assessment.” I have considered this idea before (see short blog post here), but I thought I’d write a bit more about just what authentic assessment is and how it might be implemented in philosophy.

Authentic assessment–what

A brief overview of authentic assessment can be found in Svinicki (2004). According to Svinicki, authentic assessment “is based on student activities that replicate real world performances as closely as possible” (23). She also lists several criteria for assessments to be authentic, from Wiggins (1998):

 1. The assessment is realistic; it reflects the way the information or skills would be used in the “real world.”

2. The assessment requires judgment and innovation; it is based on solving unstructured problems that could easily have more than one right answer and, as such, requires the learner to make informed choices.

3. The assessment asks the student to “do” the subject, that is, to go through the procedures that are typical to the discipline under study.

4. The assessment is done in situations as similar to the contexts in which the related skills are performed as possible.

5. The assessment requires the student to demonstrate a wide range of skills that are related to the complex problem, including some that involve judgment.

6. The assessment allows for feedback, practice, and second chances to solve the problem being addressed. (23-24)

She points to an example of how one might assign a paper as an authentic assessment. Rather than just writing an essay about law generally (perhaps legal theory?), one might ask students to write an essay arguing for why a particular law should be changed. Or even better, write a letter to legislators with that argument (25).

Turns out there are numerous lists of what criteria should be used for authentic assessment, though (not surprising?). I have only looked at a few articles, and only those that are available for easy reading online (i.e., not books, or articles in books, or articles in journals to which our library does not have a digital subscription–I know this is lazy, but I’m not doing a major lit review here!). Here’s what I’ve found.

In Ashford-Rowe et al. (2014), eight questions are given that are said to get to the essential aspects of authentic assessment. These were first developed from a literature review on authentic assessment, then subjected to evaluation and discussion by several experts in educational design and assessment, and then used to redesign a module for a course upon which they gathered student and instructor feedback to determine whether the redesign solved some of the problems faced in the earlier design.

(1) To what extent does the assessment activity challenge the student?

(2)  Is a performance, or product, required as a final assessment outcome?

(3)  Does the assessment activity require that transfer of learning has occurred, by means of demonstration of skill?

(4)  Does the assessment activity require that metacognition is demonstrated?

(5)  Does the assessment require a product or performance that could be recognised as authentic by a client or stakeholder? (accuracy)

(6)  Is fidelity required in the assessment environment? And the assessment tools (actual or simulated)?

(7)  Does the assessment activity require discussion and feedback?

(8)  Does the assessment activity require that students collaborate? (219-220)

Regarding number 3, transfer of learning, the authors state: “The authentic assessment activity should support the notion that knowledge and skills learnt in one area can be applied within other, often unrelated, areas” (208). I think the idea here is that the knowledge and skills being assessed should be ones that can transfer to environments beyond the academic setting, which is the whole idea with authentic assessment I think.

Number 4, metacognition, has to do with self-assessment, monitoring one’s own progress, the quality of one’s work, reflecting on the what one is doing and how it is useful beyond the classroom, etc.

Number 6, regarding fidelity, has to do with the degree to which the environment in which the assessment takes place, and the tools used, are similar to what will be used and how, outside of the academic setting.

The point of number 8, collaboration, is that, as the authors state, “The ability to collaborate is indispensable in most work environments” (210). So having assessments that involve collaboration would be important to their authenticity for many work environments. [Though not all, perhaps. And not all authentic assessment needs to be tied to the workplace, right? Couldn’t it be that students are developing skills and attitudes that they can use in other aspects of their lives outside of an educational context?]

Gulikers et al. (2004) define authentic assessment as “an assessment requiring students to use the same competencies, or combinations of knowledge, skills, and attitudes, that they need to apply in the criterion situation in professional life” (69). They took a somewhat different approach to determining the nature of authentic assessments than that reflected in the two lists above. They, too, started with a literature review, but from that focused on five dimensions of authentic assessments, each of which can vary in their authenticity:

(a) the assessment task

(b) the physical context

(c) the social context

(d) the assessment result or form

(e) the assessment criteria (70)

Whereas the above two lists look at the kinds of qualities an assessment should have to count as “authentic,” this list looks at several dimensions of assessments and then considers what sorts of qualities in each dimension would make an assessment more or less authentic.

So, for example, an authentic task would be, given their definition of authentic assessment as connected to professional practice, one that students would face in their professional lives. Specifically, they define an authentic task as one that “resembles the criterion task with respect to the integration of knowledge, skills, and attitudes, its complexity, and its ownership” (71), where ownership has to do with who develops the problem and solution, the employee or the employer (I think that’s their point).

The physical context has to do with what sorts of physical objects people will be working on, and also the tools they will generally be using. It makes assessments less authentic if we deprive students of tools in academic settings that they will be allowed to use in professional settings, or give them tools in academic settings that they generally won’t have access to in professional settings. Time constraints for completing the task are also relevant here, for if professionals have days to complete a task, asking students to do it in hours is less authentic.

The social context has to do with how one would be working with others (or not) in the professional setting. Specifically, they specify that if the task in the professional setting would involve collaboration, then the assessment should do so, but not otherwise.

The assessment result or form has to do with the product created through the task. It should be something that students could be asked to do in their professional lives, something that “permits making valid inferences about the underlying competencies,” which may require more than one task, with a variety of “indicators of learning” (75).

Finally, the criteria for the assessment should be similar to those used in a professional setting and connected to professional competencies.

 

Authentic assessment and philosophy

Though Gulikers et al. (2004) tie authentic assessment pretty closely to professional life, and thus what they say might seem to be most relevant to disciplines where professional practice is directly part of courses (such as medicine, business, architecture, clinical psychology, and more), the overview in Svinicki (2004) suggests that authentic assessments could take place in a wide variety of disciplines. What could it look like in philosophy?

I think this is a somewhat tricky question, because unlike some other fields, where what one studies is quite directly related to a particular kind of activity one might engage in after receiving a degree, philosophy is a field in which we practice skills and develop attitudes that can be used in a wide variety of activities, both within and beyond one’s professional life. What are those skills and attitudes? Well, that’s a whole different issue that could take months to determine (and we’re working on some of that by developing program outcomes for our major in philosophy here at UBC), but for now let’s just stick with the easy, but overly vague answers like: the ability to reason clearly; to analyze problems into their component parts and see interrelationships between these; to consider implications of particular beliefs or actions; to make a strong case for one approach to a problem over another; to identify assumptions lying behind various beliefs, approaches, practices; to locate the fundamental disagreements between two or more “sides” to a debate and thereby possibly find a way forward; to communicate clearly, orally and in writing; to take a charitable attitude towards opponents and focus on their arguments rather than the persons involved; and more.

So what could it mean to do a task in philosophy in a similar way, with similar tools, for example, as what one might encounter in a work environment? Because the skills and attitudes developed in philosophy might be used in many different work environments, which one do we pick? Or, even more broadly, since many of these skills and attitudes can be practiced in everyday life, why restrict ourselves to what one might do in a work environment?

Perhaps, though, this means we have a lot more leeway, which could be a good thing. Maybe authentic assessments in philosophy could be anything that connects to what one might do with philosophical thinking, speaking and writing skills outside of the educational setting. And if several courses included them during a students’ educational career, they could perhaps see how philosophy can be valuable in many aspects of their lives, having done different sorts of authentic assessments applying those skills to different kinds of activities.

When I came up with a couple of possible authentic assessments in philosophy courses last summer, I believe I was thinking along these lines–something that the students would do that would mirror an activity they might engage in outside of class. One, which I implemented this year in my moral theory course, asked students to apply the moral theories we’re studying to a moral dilemma or issue of some kind. This isn’t exactly like an authentic assessment, though, because I’m not sure that I would expect anyone in their everyday lives to read Kant and Mill and then try to apply them to moral dilemmas they face. Maybe some people do, but I’m not really sure that’s the main value of normative moral theories (I’m still working on what I think that value is, exactly).

Another one of the suggested assignments from that earlier blog post was that students would reflect on how they use philosophical thinking or speaking or writing in their lives outside of the course. That one isn’t asking them to do so, though, so it’s not like mirroring a task they might use outside the class; it’s just asking them to reflect on how they already do so.

So I think I need to consider further just what an authentic assessment in philosophy might look like (the one from Svinicki (2004), above, about writing a letter to legislators to change a law is a good candidate), and how I might include one in a course I teach in the future. Possible ideas off the top of my head:

  • Take a discussion of a moral issue (for example) in the media and clearly lay out the positions on the various “sides” and what arguments underlie those. Evaluate those arguments. (We do this sort of thing all the time in philosophy, but not always by starting with media reports, which would be the sort of thing one might do in one’s everyday life.) Or, identify assumptions in those positions.
  • Write a letter to the editor or an op-ed piece about some particular moral or other issue, laying out clear arguments for your case.
  • Participate in or even facilitate a meeting of a Socrates Cafe, a philosophical discussion held in a public place for anyone who is interested to join.
  • Make a case to the university, or your employer, or someone else for something that you’d like to see changed. Give a clear, logical argument for why it should be changed, and how. Can collaborate with others on this project.

Okay, this is hard.

And it occurs to me that some of what we already do might be like an authentic activity, even if not an authentic assessment. For example, when we ask students to engage in philosophical discussion in small groups during class, this is the sort of thing they might also do in their lives outside of class (don’t know how many do, but we are giving them practice for improving such activities in the future).

Hmmm…gotta think more on this…

 

Any ideas are welcome, in the comments below!

 

Works Cited

Ashford-Rowe, K., Herrington, J. & Brown, C. (2014). Establishing the critical elements that determine authentic assessment. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 39(2), 205-222. DOI: 10.1080/02602938.2013.819566

Gulikers, J.T.M., Bastiaens, T.J., Kirschner, P.A. (2004). A five-dimensional framework for authentic assessment. Educational Technology Research and Development, 52(3), 67-86. Available on JSTOR, here: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30220391?

Svinicki, M. D. (2004). Authentic assessment: Testing in reality. New Directions in Teaching and Learning, 100, 23-29. Available behind a paywall, here: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/tl.167/abstract

Wiggins, G. (1998). Educative Assessment: Designing Assessments to Inform and Improve Student Performance. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

A draft of my Moral Theory course

In a recent blog post I talked about a presentation by Paul Hibbits at the summer workshop of ETUG (Educational Technology User’s Group, in BC), where he talked about doing his course planning in the open. I said in that post that soon I would share a planning document for one of my courses. Well, it’s not so “soon” after that post, but it’s finally here. I’ve been out of town the past month, so work on this has been pretty sporadic.

I am teaching a second year moral theory course this Fall. It’s required for majors, and one thing that those of us who teach this course have agreed on is that we’d like students to have a decent sense of consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics. Beyond that, the rest is up to us. We don’t get only philosophy majors, though; there is a significant number of people in this course who are just interested, or who have taken a course in philosophy and want to take another, etc.

I’ve got much of a draft of a planning document for this course, though I’m missing readings for Virtue Ethics (still gotta work on that part!). This is all still very much draft; it may change!

Here’s the document: http://is.gd/KyJcyM

I’ve made it open so that anyone with a link can comment, so please add comments on the document or below, in the comments section, if you have any.

You’ll notice that I tried very hard to make it so that students don’t have to buy (many) books, but I am asking them to buy one, Kant’s Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. I would have liked it if all the readings could be open and free, but I don’t think we’re yet at that stage in philosophy. Some of them are, but some are behind journal paywalls.

I have a few female philosophers on there, but definitely need more, especially in the consequentialism/utilitarianism section.

Closing the feedback loop

I attended the biannual meeting of the American Association of Philosophy Teachers July 30-Aug 2, 2014, and got some fantastic suggestions/ideas for future teaching, as I did the last time I attended this conference. The AAPT workshop/conference is easily one of my top favourite conferences: it is so friendly, inviting, supportive, and there are great people to talk to about teaching philosophy as well as about life in general. I haven’t laughed this much, for so many days in succession, for a long time. It’s too bad this meeting is only held every two years, as these are people I’d sure like to see more often!

I’m going to take a few of blog posts to write down some of the (many) things that inspired me at this conference, that I’d like to try in my own teaching one way or another. There were many more things than I’m going to write about here—I have pages and pages of notes that I typed out during the conference. But in this and a couple of future posts, I’ll focus on just a few.

Broken feedback loop: when did you not respond well to feedback?

Rebecca Scott from Loyola University Chicago facilitated a session on closing the feedback loop, which started off in a really helpful way: she asked us to consider (among other things) times when we received feedback from someone (whether in the context of our academic lives or other aspects of our lives) and didn’t respond in the way that we now think would be most helpful.

Kawazu Loop Bridge, Flickr photo shared by Tanaka Juuyoh, licensed CCBY 2.0

Kawazu Loop Bridge, Flickr photo shared by Tanaka Juuyoh, licensed CCBY 2.0

I won’t give details on either situation, but one of them had to do with feedback I received at the end of a course that utterly shocked and floored me. More than one student said that I did something that was so very far from who I think I am that I just couldn’t believe it was true. All I could think of was: “How could someone think I was doing that? There’s no way I did that! They must be wrong.” I didn’t entertain (at first) the idea that the feedback could be right in some way. It just didn’t fit with who I thought I was.

Remembering this situation helped put me into the mindset of students receiving critical feedback (or, at least, helped move me closer to that I hope), and not believe it, getting angry, indignant, even lashing out. When that happens you are not even allowing yourself to think that the feedback might be true; since it doesn’t fit with who you think you are, your own evaluation of the quality of your work, the truth must be that whoever said that is simply wrong. I’m reminded of Socrates who, at least in Plato’s texts, would show his interlocutors that they didn’t know what they thought they knew, and for some the reaction was to just assume that Socrates must be wrong and to get angry with him.

Why might feedback not be incorporated into future work?

We came up with numerous reasons during the session, which I wrote down:

  • Getting emotional; taking things too personally; losing sight of the goal of feedback
  • Not caring about the work, just trying to get credit
  • Too motivated by grade, not enough by learning
  • Not believing that the feedback is true; e.g., coming into class with mindset that one is an A student b/c have gotten A’s so far, so don’t believe the instructor who gives a lower mark
  • Distrust of the instructor, institution, due to larger social issues/context
  • Not thinking that you could do any better, that you’re capable of improving even with feedback; including: getting discouraged at how much they have to change and thinking they can’t
  • Not seeing work as formative process; thinking that when the assignment is done you are done and don’t need to revisit it, to learn from it
  • Professor and students seeing diff goals of feedback; students might think that feedback is there to explain why they got the grade they did, but for the prof it might be there to show ways to improve
  • Not understanding the feedback
  • Not connecting feedback from past to future situations
  • Thinking that just reading the comments is enough to improve for later
  • Not having a clear idea of what good work looks like to aim for
  • Too much feedback; overwhelmed; don’t know what to do with it

The one that I find hardest to deal with (though many are quite challenging) is the first: the emotional reaction. It kept me from addressing my situation as well as I could have, and I can see how student emotional reactions could lead them to not want to even look at the feedback again or think about it at all.

A reflective assignment to close the feedback loop

Rebecca shared with us an assignment she gives to students that asks them to reflect on their feedback, that forces them to read it and consider it and reflect on what they want to change for the future based on it. And the first item on that assignment is a question, asking them what their immediate reaction was on receiving the feedback. The idea is that maybe if they have an outlet to write it down, to let you know their emotional reaction, this might help them move past it.

But I think the rest of the assignment might help with that too. Because it goes on to ask students to

  • write down how many comments they got in each of several categories (to help them see which areas they need to work on, and to ensure that they read the comments or at least skim them),
  • what grade they expected, what grade they got and what do they think explains the difference between these
  • how much of the feedback do they feel they understand
  • what two things do they want to work on for the next assignment, and
  • whether they have any questions or comments about the feedback they received

How might all of this help with the emotional reaction issue? Besides making them continue to think about the feedback even if they get angry instead of just ignoring it, it also gives them a chance to give feedback on the feedback, to try to figure out what could explain the difference between the grade they expected and the grade they got, which could include thinking about the feedback and how it might suggest that the grade makes at least some sense. Or, if they disagree with the feedback, it gives them an outlet to do so, and the instructor can follow up with them later to discuss the issue.

How I’d like to adapt this assignment, and also address a couple of the other problems above

I like this idea of a reflection on the feedback that you submit to the instructor, but I also want them to have a kind of running record of the feedback they’ve received, the 2-3 things they want to work on for the next time, what they did well and want to keep doing, etc. In addition, I want to make sure that they have to look back at this feedback for the next paper they write.

So, here’s an idea.

1. For the Arts One course I teach, in which students write a paper every 2 weeks (12 over the course of a year), I think I’ll ask them to include on each new essay:

  • a list of at least two things they tried to do better on this one, based on feedback from the last one
  • at least one thing they themselves noticed from their previous essay that either they think was good or that they would like to improve on, that no one else pointed out
    • this is so that they don’t just look back at the feedback but also back at their previous essay and see what they themselves think, in order to do some self-assessment

2. I would also like to institute a policy in terms of my own feedback: that I will point out one or two instances of a certain type of mistake, and ask them to look for more instances (if I saw more in the essay, that is). Then, also on the next essay:

  • Point out at least one other place in the previous essay where one of the comments I made applies elsewhere too.
    • This is again so that they need to go do some self assessment of their work, and so I don’t need to go through and point out every single mistake. I think this could help with the issue of being overwhelmed by too much feedback

3. Finally, I think it would be great if they could keep a learning log, digitally, where they keep track of, for each essay: the comments they’ve gotten from peers, at least two things from me that they want to work on, the things they’re doing well and want to keep doing. That way they have a running record and periodically I can ask them to reflect on whether there are any patterns/repeated comments, or whether they are getting better because certain sorts of comments aren’t being said anymore.

These things could hopefully all help with the issue of not connecting feedback on previous work to later work. But I have to figure out how much of this is adding too much work for the students, or whether it is all so pedagogically valuable as to be worth it.

Back to when I didn’t respond well

At first, I just shut down. So I can understand when students do that. I didn’t want to think about it and just wanted to move past it. But I did eventually do something: I emailed all my students and asked them to fill in another feedback form, anonymously, that would just go to me. I asked them to be as specific as possible, because I didn’t get quite enough details on the first one. I got a few more details on this second round, which helped me understand some of the concerns expressed and how students may have come to the conclusion they did (and even that I might have been unconsciously doing some of what they thought, even though I’m still reluctant to believe that). But not entirely fully. I think there was some miscommunication somewhere that I just can’t rectify now.

All the more reason to give students more of a chance to give feedback during the course so problems can be solved earlier! (I just did it once, during the first term, and not at all during the second: lesson learned!)

 

Authentic assessments in two PHIL classes

For the blended learning course I’m taking on teaching a blended learning course, we were asked to design an “authentic assessment” for one of our courses. An authentic assessment, from what I understand, is one in which students are either simulating or doing the very sorts of activities you hope they will be able to do outside of class, after they take the course. In addition, according to some of the text of the course I’m taking,

According to Eisner (1993), authentic assessment projects should reveal how students go about solving the problems (process) and should have more than one correct solution. They should:

  • Promote ‘how’ knowledge as opposed to the ‘what’ knowledge measured in ‘traditional’ assignments;
  • Provide a way for students to develop an understanding of complex course material that will serve them beyond the classroom;
  • Encourage higher-order cognitive skills;
  • Involve students more extensively in the development of the assessment and the grading criteria.

PHIL 102: Introduction to Philosophy

Here is an idea for an authentic assessment activity for my Introduction to Philosophy course.

Rationale

In PHIL 102, Introduction to Philosophy, the main theme of the course is investigating what philosophy is, what philosophers do, and the value of these things, both by reading about what philosophers themselves have said about these questions, and by considering what the philosophers whose texts we are reading are doing with their lives and their writing.

One of the things I’d like students to be able to do by the end of the course is to recognize ways in which they themselves engage in philosophical activity, in their everyday lives.

Activity

Students will write a reflective blog post towards the end of the term in which they discuss two things they do in their lives that could show philosophical thinking or addressing of philosophical questions. They will also add a short summary of their post for a class wiki page on this question.

Learning objective addressed: “Explain at least two ways in which you yourself use philosophical thinking or address philosophical questions in your everyday life.”

Instructions

Now that the course is nearly over, you should have a pretty good idea of what philosophy is and what philosophers do. It’s  time to consider the ways in which you yourself engage in philosophy. This assignment consists of two parts:

1. Write a blog post on the class blog in which you do the following:

  • Discuss at least two ways in which you yourself use philosophical thinking or consider philosophical questions in your own life, your own day-to-day activities, your major life decisions, etc.
  • Explain why these could be considered “philosophical,” referring to at least one of the philosophers or texts or ideas we’ve discussed in class.
  • This blog post should be at least 300 words long, but no longer than 800 words

2. After you’ve completed your blog post, contribute your two ways to the class wiki page for this assignment [give URL for this here].

  • Write a one or two-sentence summary of each of the ways you engage in philosophical thinking or activity and put them as bullet points on the wiki page.
  • Christina will then organize these under general categories after they are posted, to make them easier to read through, and we’ll discuss the results in class

Marking criteria

This assignment will be marked using a three-level system:

1. Plus:

  • Your blog post discusses at least two ways in which you engage in philosophical thinking or address philosophical questions in your life
  • Your blog post adequately explains how these things are philosophical, referring to at least one of the philosophers/texts/ideas we’ve discussed in class.
  • Your blog post is between 300 and 800 words long.
  • You wrote a one- or two-sentence summary of each of the two things you discussed in your post, on the class wiki page.
  • Both the post and the wiki entry were completed by the due date and time.

2. Minus:

  • Your blog post discusses only one way in which you engage in philosophical thinking or address philosophical questions in your life, or
  • Your blog post does not adequately explain how this/these activities are philosophical, and/or doesn’t refer to at least one of the philosophers/texts/ideas we’ve discussed in class, or
  • Your blog post is less than 300 words or more than 800 words, or
  • Your blog post was fine, but you didn’t submit your one- or two-sentence summary of each point discussed in the post on the wiki page, or
  • Your blog post and/or wiki entry were submitted after the due date and time, but no later than six days afterwards.

3. Zero:

  • Your post and/or wiki page entry was not completed, or
  • Your blog post and/or wiki entry were completed seven or more days after the due date.

 

Thoughts/questions

I wanted this assignment to not only be useful for the students writing the posts themselves, to get them to think about how philosophy plays a role in their own lives, but also to others. That’s why I thought of having them post to a wiki page–there are often over 100 students in this course, and reading that many different blog posts will be too much for anyone else visiting the course (my courses are on open sites, on UBC Blogs, so anyone can visit them; students always have the option of posting under a pseudonym, or with a password so only the rest of the class can read, or private to me if they choose).

But just having a list of one- or two-sentence summaries on a wiki page is too messy too. So I thought I’d try to categorize them myself after they’re posted, and say something like: 15 people said x, 8 people said y, etc.

Of course, this is more work for me. Any ideas on how to make it so that we have a kind of summary document that might be useful for students in the class as well as others, without me having to go through and categorize all the entries? It’s okay if I have to do so (it’s just busy work, and easy), but if there are other ways I’d love to hear them!

 

PHIL 230: INTRODUCTION TO MORAL THEORY

Here is an idea for an authentic assessment for this course. Students will be writing in a “moral issue” journal throughout the course, starting with what they think about a particular moral issue, then comparing this with what they think each of the philosophers we study would say about it, and then concluding with their thoughts on the value of trying to come up with moral theories such as the ones we’ve studied. For this assignment, I’d like students to be able to take what they’re reflecting on in their moral issue journals and refine part of it into a formal essay.

This way, they’ll be using what they have learned in the course in thinking about moral issues they may face around them in their everyday lives.

Moral issue paper

For this paper, you’ll be using what you’ve reflected on in your moral issue journal and writing a formal paper. The idea here, as with the moral issue journal, is to apply the moral theories we’ve been studying to a moral issue that you might face in your life, or one that involves a larger group of people such as a community or nation. In this way, you’ll be making connections between what we’re studying in class and your life beyond.

Instructions

Using the moral issue you’ve been focusing on in your moral issue journal, write an argumentative paper that argues for how a consequentialist and a Kantian would approach the issue. Include also your own view on whether one approach is better than the other for this particular issue, and why (or why not; it may just be that they are very different and there’s no clear reason to choose one over the other).

Parts of the essay

Note from the Guidelines for essays handout that your essay should have an introduction with your thesis statement, a conclusion that wraps up the essay in some way, and body paragraphs that provide adequate arguments for the conclusion.

Your thesis should include (note that a thesis can be more than one sentence):

  • A summary statement of what a consequentialist and a Kantian would say about the issue
  • A summary of your view on whether or not one approach is better

Be sure to explain the moral issue you’re addressing, early on in the essay.

Length

The essay should be between 5 and 8 pages, typed, double-spaced, with margins between 0.75 and 1 inches, and font size between 11 and 12 points. [Or 2000-3000 words?]

Quotes, paraphrases, and citing sources

Quotes vs paraphrases: It’s usually best to have a mixture of both. You should use quotes where it’s important to give the author’s exact words, where the words themselves help you to make a point. This is often the case when a passage can be interpreted in more than one way, and you want to justify your interpretation with the words of the author. You can also use quotes where you need an extended passage to make your point (be sure to indent quotes over 4 lines long, 5 spaces on the left).

Citing sources in the paragraphs: Whether you give a quote or paraphrase a specific point from the text, you should give a page number or section/paragraph number to show where the information can be found in the text. You choose your favourite citation style, or you can just give the author’s last name plus the page or section number, in parentheses: (Kant 55). (This is the MLA style.) If you are citing more than one text by an author, give a shortened version of the title of the text in the parentheses as well: (Kant, Religion 99).

Citing sources at the end of the essay: Be sure to give a works cited page that includes all the texts you cited in parentheses in the essay. Again, you can use any citation style you wish, but be sure to include all the information that that citation style requires. For example, you can see how to create a Works Cited list in MLA style here [give URL].

Avoid plagiarism: It is the policy of the Instructor to prosecute plagiarism to the fullest extent allowed by UBC. Any use of another’s words, including just a sentence or part of a sentence, without citation, constitutes plagiarism. Use of another’s ideas without citation does as well. To avoid plagiarism, always give a citation whenever you have taken ideas or direct words from another source. Please see this page on the course website for information on how to avoid plagiarism, especially when you’re paraphrasing ideas or quoting from another source—quite a lot of plagiarism is not on purpose, just because students don’t understand the rules! https://blogs.ubc.ca/phil102/resources/

Depth of explanation and narrowness vs. breadth and superficiality: It’s usually best to focus your paper on a small number of claims and argue for them in some depth rather than trying to range widely over a very large number of claims that you then only have space to justify very quickly. Pick the strongest points for each, consequentialism and Kantianism, and focus on those.

Audience you should write for: Write this essay as if you were writing for someone who is in the class, has not read the texts, and has not attended the class meetings (say, a friend or family member). Explain your view, and the arguments of the philosophers you discuss, in as much depth as would be needed to make them clear to such an audience.

Marking: See the marking rubric posted here on the course website [give URL].

Late penalty: 5 points off per weekday late, unless otherwise agreed to by the Instructor (may require documentation). I do not generally give extensions due to students’ workloads, only for things that are unexpected and unavoidable such as medical issues; so plan ahead if you have multiple assignments due around the time that this essay is due!

“Students as Producers” Assignments in Intro to PHIL

For the blended learning course I’m doing on teaching a blended learning course, we were asked to think about possible assignments that could fit the “students as producers” model, where that involves projects that “encompass open-ended problems or questions, a authentic audience and a degree of autonomy” (according to the text in the course). Here’s a nice overview by Derek Bruff of the idea of “students as producers.”

 

Here are two ideas for “student as producer” assignments for my Introduction to Philosophy course (PHIL 102).

1. Shared notes on the reading

One person in each small group (of 4-5 students) is responsible for taking notes on the reading and posting them before any lecture on that section. Students will sign up for specific dates to finish their notes by.

Notes must include:

  • A statement of what you think the main point/main conclusion in this section of the reading is. If there is more than one, pick just one of the main conclusions in the reading. Refer to a page number where this conclusion can be found (or section and paragraph number, if the reading has no page numbers).
  • How the author argues for this point: give the reasons/premises the author gives to support the conclusion. Refer to page numbers where these premises can be found (or section and paragraph numbers, if the reading has no page numbers).
  • Give one or more comments about what you’ve discussed above: is there anything you disagree with? If so, why? Or, is there something in it that you find particularly interesting? How? Or, do you have any questions about it?

These notes must be typed and shared with the class, on the class blog [insert URL for where to share them]. Be sure to tag the post you’ve written with the last name of the author (e.g., Plato, Epicurus).

Anyone in the class can review the sets of notes for each author, which is a great resource for reviewing the text! Any student can respond to a question posed in one of the posts, or make a comment in response to what a student has said about the reading; you don’t have to just do it for the person from your small group.

 

Since the above is only partly open-ended (sections (a) and (b) are not very open-ended), I thought of another assignment as well.

 

2. What would it be like to live like an Epicurean or a Stoic?

For this activity, you will need to imagine what it would be like to live as either an Epicurean or a Stoic (choose one). You’ll need to describe some aspects of your current life and then how they would change if you lived as either an Epicurean or a Stoic. For example, you could consider how the following might be different (or anything else you deem relevant):

a. What you choose to study/what your career might be

b. What you spend your money on

c. What your day to day routine is like, the main choices you make each day and how they might change

Write a blog post on the class blog describing how your life would be different if you were an Epicurean or a Stoic. Discuss at least two ways that your life would be different. Include in your post a reflection on whether you think this would be a good way to live or not, and why.

  • Be sure to tag it either “Epicureanism” or “Stoicism,” and put it under the category “Live like a…”
  • Your blog post should be at least 400 words long, but no more than 900
  • Refer to the text with page numbers or section/paragraph numbers to show where the author says something that justifies why your life would be the way you say it would

This activity will be marked on a three-level scale:

  • Plus:
  • You have described at least two aspects of your life that would be different and why, with specific page or paragraph references to at least one of the texts we’ve read
  • You have included a reflection on whether you think this would be a good way to live or not, and why
  • the blog post is between 400 and 900 words long
  • Minus:
  • You have described only one aspect of your life that would be different, and/or
  • You have not adequately explained why your life would be different, and/or
  • You have not given specific references to the text(s) where needed to support your claims, and/or
  • You have not included a reflection on whether you think this would be a good way to live or not, and why
  • The post is less than 400 words or more than 900 words long, and/or
  • The post is late, without an acceptable excuse for being so (one to six days late)
  • Zero:
  • The post was not completed, or
  • It was completed seven or more days late

 

How are these related to the “student as producer” idea?

I was thinking of “student as producer” as having to do with students making things to share with a wider audience, producing content that would be useful to others. The first assignment does that for other students in the course; the second, if the blog posts are on a public site rather than a closed site (which my class blogs usually are), may provide information that could be interesting and useful to a wider audience trying to understand what Epicureanism and Stoicism are all about.

I was also thinking that the second assignment could be considered a kind of “authentic assignment,” in that many of the ancient philosophers thought that the purpose of philosophy was to change your life, to cause you to live in a better way, to be happier. I considered making them actually live like Epicureans or Stoics for a day, but I’m not sure one would get much out of just one day of doing so. Maybe a week would give you a taste, but that may be too much to ask! So I decided to do a simulation instead.

I’d love to hear anyone’s thoughts on how I might make either one of these assignments more useful to students or a wider audience, or more “authentic.” I considered adding a collaborative element to the second one, having them do it in groups, but I got stuck on whose life they would start with to consider how that life would change if lived as an Epicurean or Stoic, and then I got stuck on how they’d share the duties for writing the blog post about it. Any suggestions here would be great!

Making argument outlines in groups

As noted in an earlier post, I’m participating in mostly online course about teaching in a “blended” learning environment (partly online, partly face to face). The course is entirely housed within a closed environment on Blackboard Connect, unfortunately, but I’m posting some of my own contributions here so I can have them easily accessible even after the course ends.

During this first week of the course, one of the things we were asked to do was to think about active learning strategies and complete an activity, for which the instructions can be found below in blue. My own answer follows the instructions. After completing this activity we were asked to think about how we might integrate technology into the activity. Since the use of a wiki is already there, I’m not sure I have anything to add to what I’ve already said in the first part of the activity.

Activity Instructions:

1. Identify current practice
To get started, identify a current practice in your course that  you would like to make more active.

2. Identify Active Learning Strategies
Drawing from resources presented above as a reference, explore the wide range of active learning strategies. Identify one of these strategies you’d like to try for your class.

3. Plan and Develop at Least One Learning Activity
Plan and develop at least one active learning activity that you can integrate or scaffold (Bilash, 2009) into your course or module.  

Ensure that your plan includes:
1. A description of the learning activity
2. Your rationale for creating and using it
3. An explanation of how this learning activity links to course materials and objectives
4. Complete and clear Instructions
5. Complete grading information including a rubric should you choose to use one
6. An overview of potential issues and your plan for dealing with them should they occur

 

An activity I’d like to change

In some of my philosophy courses, I ask students to do “argument outlines,” where they have a passage of text and they need to provide an outline of the premises and conclusion. We practice this in class with me first providing my outlines for arguments, and then they can practice in groups, and then they have to do one or two on their own on a quiz or exam. I would like to expand this activity so that they learn even more from their peers and get even more practice before doing it on an quiz by themselves. The following gives a chance for students to see more possible ways of outlining arguments, and to discuss amongst themselves which they think is best. It can also help them to see that there may be multiple ways of doing so that are all valid.

How I’m thinking of changing it (description of the activity)

I’ll ask everyone to read a short passage of assigned text, then come up with their own, individual outlines of it. Then, in a small group, they should share their outlines and decide, as a group, on an outline that they think is a good one. Hopefully they will get ideas from each other as to what might work and what isn’t the best way to go about outlining the premises and conclusion. 

Then, I’ll have a wiki page for each group on the UBC wiki, where they’ll type in their outline (one person in each group will need to have a laptop or tablet). There is a way (though I’m not sure yet how to do it, I’ve seen it done!) to put all the groups’ individual answers into one page after the groups have finished typing in their answers. I’ll have to figure out how to do that.

Finally, in the last step, each group will take a look at the other outlines on the now-collated page, and decide which of those (including their own) they think is best. I’ll use something like “poll everywhere” to have each group to vote on which one they think is best, and see what the result is. We can then have a discussion about results.

Added July 14, 2014: Actually, I think it would be better if they vote on which outlines they think work, rather than which is best. This can cut down on concerns about students feeling bad that theirs isn’t voted “best,” and also drive home the idea that there may be more than one way to do an outline that works.

Of course, outlining an argument is only the first step; we also need to learn how to criticize arguments well. But that is an assignment for another day!

How this fits with course materials and objectives

Learning to identify, analyze, and criticize arguments is one of the basic skills we teach in philosophy courses. It is something that students can use in other courses and in their everyday lives. They won’t need to sit down and outline arguments as formally as we ask them to do, but to be able to identify what is being argued for and how, and then to be able to isolate particular premises and determine which are weak and which are strong, are skills that can be quite useful in the future. They are also some of the skills I ask students to practice and hone in my courses.

Instructions

1. Read the following passage [give specifics on what to read] and write down what you think the conclusion of the argument is, as well as the premises (reasons) given to support it. This part of the activity is to be done on your own. You can write this down on a piece of paper or a computer or mobile device. You’ll have just five minutes to do this part of the activity, but don’t worry; you’ll be coming up with a group outline next, so it’s okay if you don’t finish your individual one. You will need to turn in your individual outline, but I’ll just be looking at it to see that you tried to do it, not marking how good it is.

2. In your small group [determined beforehand, making sure that at least one person in each group has a laptop or tablet], share your outlines amongst yourselves and discuss differences. Take fifteen minutes maximum to come up with a group outline of the argument, one that most or all of you agree with. It’s okay if not everyone agrees; know that there may be more than one valid way to outline any single argument, so there may be legitimate differences without someone being “wrong.” It’s best if most of the group agrees, however.

3. Type your group’s outline on the group page on the UBC wiki [URL will be given in advance].

4. After all the groups have finished typing their outlines in, go to [give URL for collated page] to see all the groups’ outlines. I will also show as many of these on the screen at the front of the room as I can, but the space there is limited so it’s best if you can all look on someone’s screen to see them all. As a group, choose which of the outlines you think is best (it may be your own groups’ outline, or it may be that of another). You’ll have ten minutes to do so. July 14 addition: [Instead of voting on which is best, do the following:] As a group, choose outlines that you think offer a good analysis of the argument noting that there may be several different ones that work. So you may choose several outlines.

5. Using poll everywhere, I’ll ask each group to vote on the outline they think is best. One vote per group. Then we’ll discuss the results together as a class. July 14 addition: [Instead of the above, use this:] Using poll everywhere, each group should cast a vote for the outlines they think work (as many as the group thinks are good, not just one only). Then we’ll discuss the results together as a class.

Grading information

This activity counts as part of your participation mark for the course. I’ll be collecting the individual outlines you are going to do at the beginning of the activity, but just to see that you were there and participating. They don’t have to be finished because you don’t have a lot of time for that part of the activity, but you do need to have started and have something that matches the passage at least somewhat closely. If you wrote it on paper, submit it to me at the end of the class. If you typed it on your computer or tablet, submit it on the course website before midnight on the same class day as you did it. You will get either a plus for full marks, a minus for half marks, or a zero for not completing the activity at all.

Potential problems and how to handle them

One potential problem I see already in what I’ve written above is with grading. At first I thought I’d just do this without any grading at all, but I realized that some students just won’t participate if it isn’t somehow monitored. So I decided to have them submit their individual outlines, and just give them a plus or minus or zero. Most everyone would get a plus unless they just didn’t try at all or weren’t there or were there but didn’t submit anything (zero).

This, of course, only means they need to do the individual portion of the activity. They could then just do other things on their computers during the group portion if I don’t somehow monitor that. If I knew everyone’s names I could walk around the room and see who is participating in the group discussions and who is not, and mark accordingly. I have a few small classes in which I could do that, but many of my classes are nearly 100 students or more, and I don’t know everyone’s name. I could potentially have each group give each other marks, but that seems a bit of work when this is just a one-off class activity for which the groups themselves aren’t getting marks. I could give the group a mark for their outline and then ask each group member to mark the other group members. I’ll have to think about that option. it requires more work on my part (marking the group outlines as well as the individual outlines), and all that adds up when you have so many students!

Another possible concern is that students might feel ashamed or embarrassed in front of their peers if they have to share their individual outlines and then the group comes up with one they mostly agree with; perhaps one or two students will feel that their work just isn’t up to par after this process, and they will be unhappy having shared it with others. Maybe emphasizing that there could be more than one way to correctly outline an argument could help, so those students might think their outlines could still be acceptable. I wonder if coaching the students on how to handle differences constructively might help? And if there isn’t a grade attached to the quality of the outline, just that people tried, this may help too–at least they don’t feel like they are getting a low mark in front of their peers. That’s a reason for maybe NOT grading the group outlines for quality; those groups who don’t receive many votes in the last part of the activity wouldn’t then have to feel that they are going to get low marks and everyone else can see that (which may not be true; popularity doesn’t mean correctness, but they might feel that way anyway). Overall, emphasizing that this is just practice and that mistakes are expected at this point might help as well.

Providing feedback to students for self-regulation

On Nov. 21, 2013, I did a workshop with graduate students in Philosophy at UBC on providing effective feedback on essays. I tried to ground as much as I could on work in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.

Here are the slides for the workshop (note, we did more than this…this is just all I have slides for):

 

Here is the works cited for the slides:

Carless, D. (2006). Differing perceptions in the feedback process. Studies in Higher Education, 31(2), 219-233.

 

Chanock, K. (2000). Comments on essays: Do students understand what tutors write? Teaching in Higher Education, 5(1), 95-105.

 

Lizzio, A. and Wilson, K. (2008). Feedback on assessment: Students’ perceptions of quality and effectiveness. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 33(3), 263-275.

 

Lunsford, R.F. (1997). When less is more: Principles for responding in the disciplines. New Directions For Teaching and Learning, 69, 91-104.

 

Nicol, D.J. and Macfarlane-Dick, D. (2006). Formative assessment and self-regulated learning: a model and seven principles of good feedback practice. Studies in Higher Education, 31(2), 199-218.

 

Sadler, D.R. (1989). Formative assessment and the design of instructional systems. Instructional Science, 18, 119-144.

 

Walker, M. (2009). An investigation into written comments on assignments: do students find them usable? Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 34(1), 67-78.

 

Weaver, M.R. (2006). Do students value feedback? Student perceptions of tutors’ written responses. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 31(3), 379-394.

An Intro to Philosophy course on…philosophy (help, please)

For the first time in probably a year, I’m going back to writing about teaching philosophy here on my blog. I’m on sabbatical July 2012-July 2013, and have been using that time to do work in lots of other areas in relation to teaching and learning, and to take a couple of MOOCs (as you can tell from recent posts). But it’s time to start planning next year’s courses (past time, really), and I found I’m stuck on one of them.

I am teaching Introduction to Philosophy in the Fall, though this one is focused on value theory only (we have a separate intro course for epistemology, metaphysics, & more). In the past I taught it kind of like an ethical theory course, but then realized I was doing the same things in that course as in my 2nd year ethical theory course. I’ve been struggling with what best to do with this course, including just what an Intro course should do. It’s not required for our majors, so we don’t have to do any history of philosophy if we don’t want to…but I do. That’s what I know and love. But it can be really off-putting for people who are just having a taste of philosophy to slog through Plato’s Republic or the like. Still, I love it, so I’m torn.

I think perhaps an Intro course for non-majors should be something that (a) well, introduces the field to students new to it, (b) engages them, and (c) exhibits why philosophy is something anyone might want to continue to do, think about, study, etc. The first one is easy; the other two not so much.

A couple of years ago I focused this course on “happiness,” on what philosophers have said about how to live a happy life (or a good life), and how ethics is part of that for many. It worked okay, but I probably should know more about psychology studies on happiness and include more of that to make it a better course.

This year I thought I’d try something different, but I’m not sure it’s a good idea, and I am a bit stuck in finding things for the course, so I’m asking for help.

“The philosophers,” cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by ellenm1

What is philosophy and what can it do for us?

Or some such thing. I’m thinking of introducing philosophy by looking at what philosophers themselves have said about what it is and why it’s valuable. So, for example, there are lots of texts from ancient Greek and Roman philosophers about how philosophy is important for teaching us how to live, how to have a good life–all that philosophy as a way of life stuff that Pierre Hadot talks about (also, What is Ancient Philosophy? from Hadot). I’m really drawn to this idea, in part because I’ve thought about it a fair bit after reading and teaching some of Foucault’s last lectures at the Collège de France (especially Hermeneutics of the Subject, where he focuses on philosophy as a practice of transforming the self).

So I thought about creating a course where we don’t look at what philosophy is and does by reading and discussing philosophical texts on other topics, but rather on those metaphilosopical topics themselves. This would at least cover (a) and (c) above–introduce what philosophy is and what philosophers do (which one can do through reading & discussing pretty much any philosophical texts), and showing why doing philosophy might be useful…at least, why some have thought so.

Sounded like fun to me, at least, and the instructor being excited is at least a very helpful ingredient to a good course.

Problem–can’t think of many philosophers who talk about this directly

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I don’t have many ideas on readings for this topic beyond the ancients. Who else writes about what philosophy is, what philosophers do, why it’s a good thing (or not), etc?

Possibly Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy might be good, but I haven’t read it yet so I’m not sure. And I’d have to figure out what to excerpt from it.

And Nietzsche has some choice things to say about philosophers in Twilight of the Idols, among other places.

I think Kant’s “What is Enlightenment?” could fit, as a discussion of the value of reason used in a public sense (which could be philosophers or others). Also his “Conjectural Beginning of Human History” and “Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View” as a way to show how a philosophical reading of history might help to spur people towards enlightenment. 

Some existentialist texts might be useful for talking about how philosophical thinking might help us deal with despair, or absurdity (e.g., Camus’ Myth of Sisyphus, perhaps?). An existentialist novel or play might be good too, but I’m woefully unfamiliar with those.

There’s Russell, “The Value of Philosophy,” of course. Check. And maybe some of his social/political writings to show philosophy in action beyond the academy.

And along those lines, one could include perhaps some philosopher “public intellectuals” writing about social/political topics, such as Martha Nussbaum and/or Kwame Anthony Appiah.

I think Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem might be good for talking about what happens when people don’t think carefully and evil becomes “banal”–philosophical thinking/discussion might make a difference? But this could be a stretch.

Problem: I don’t want to teach yet another course with only a couple of female philosophers

And yet, that’s where I’m headed in planning so far.

Help?

Beyond the above ideas, some of which are better than others, I’m kind of stymied. I spent all day yesterday doing internet searches to try to find what other philosophers have said about their field and its value/what good we do, but came up fairly empty-handed.

So I’m asking anyone who cares to read this: do you have any ideas of other philosophers/readings for this topic, particularly any by women? And remember, things more in the line of value theory than not are best.

Or, does this just seem like a bad idea? And if so, why? I would appreciate constructive criticism if you have any.

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Update May 16, 2013

I got some good suggestions via Twitter that I thought I’d include here, partly for my future reference but also in case anyone else is interested. Twitter is fantastic–I send out questions, and I invariably get answers/advice/suggestions quickly! Thanks to @ctokelly, @phaedrustweets, @muzrobertson, @philizopher

Elizabeth Anscombe, “Modern Moral Philosophy”
Henri Bergson, “L’intuition philosophique,” in La pensée et le mouvant (“Philosophical Intuition,” in The Creative Mind)
Deleuze & Guattari, What is Philosophy?
Philippa Foot, Natural Goodness
Heidegger, What is Philosophy?
Avital Ronell, American Philo (I think this is only in French, though)

An article by Samantha Vice on white shame in S. Africa, and the media coverage afterwards:
–original article: “How do I live in this strange place?” (J. of Social Philosophy)
— some reactions in the media, from the Mail & Guardian (S. Africa)

 

Summary of research on modes of peer assessment

I have been doing quite a few “research reviews” of articles on peer assessment–where I summarize the articles and offer comments about them. Lately I’ve been reading articles on different modes of peer assessment: written, oral, online, face to face, etc. And here, I am going to try to put together what that research has said to see if anything can really be concluded about these issues from it.

In what follows, I link to the blog posts discussing each article. Links to the articles themselves can be found at the bottom of this post.

I created PDF tables to compare/contrast the articles under each heading. They end up being pretty small here on the blog, so I also have links to each one of them, below.

Peer feedback via asynchronous, written methods or synchronous, oral, face to face methods

This is the dichotomy I am most interested in: is there a difference when feedback is given asynchronously, in a written form, or when given synchronously, as spoken word face to face? Does the feedback itself differ? Might one form of feedback be more effective than another in terms of being taken up in later revisions of essays?

Do the comments differ in the two modes of peer feedback, and are they used differently in later drafts?

The PDF version of the table below can be downloaded here.

van den Berg, Admiraal and Pilot (2006) looked at differences in what was said in peer feedback on writing assignments when it was written (on standardized peer feedback forms, used for the whole class) and when it was given in oral, face to face discussions. They found that written feedback tended to be more focused on evaluating the essays, saying what was good or bad about them, and less on giving explanations for those evaluative comments or on providing suggestions for revision (though this result differed between the courses they analyzed). In the oral discussions, there was more of a balance between evaluating content, explaining that evaluation, and offering revisions. They also found that both written and oral feedback focused more on content and style than on structure, though there were more comments on structure in the written feedback than in the oral. The authors note, though, that in the courses in which peer feedback took place on early drafts or outlines, there was more feedback on structure than when it took place on later drafts. They conclude: “A combination of written and oral feedback is more profitable than written or oral feedback only” (146).

Hewett (2000) looked at differences in peer feedback between an oral, face to face environment and an electronic, text-based environment. She found that the talk in the oral communication was much more interactive, with students responding to each others’ comments, giving verbal cues that they were following along, and also working together to generate new ideas. The text-based, online feedback was much less like a conversation, with students commenting on the papers at hand but not interacting very much with each other. Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, while the feedback in the written environment was mostly focused on the content of the essay being evaluated, the discussion in the oral environment ranged more widely. Hewett also analyzed essay drafts and peer comments from both environments to see if the peer discussion and comments influenced later drafts of essays. She found that in the oral environment, there was more use in students’ work of ideas that came up in the peer discussion about others’ essays, or that one had oneself said. Hewett concludes that a combination of oral discussion and asynchronous, written comments would be good, using the former for earlier stages of writing–since in oral discussion there can be more talk in which students speculate about wider issues and work together to come up with new ideas–and the latter for revisions focused more on content.

What are students’ views of each mode?

A PDF version of the following table can be downloaded here.

Figl et al. (2006) surveyed students in a computer science course who had engaged in peer assessment of a software project in both the face to face mode as well as through an online, asynchronous system that allows for recording of criticisms as well as adding comments as in a discussion board. There wasn’t a clear preference for one mode over another overall, except in one sense: about half of the students preferred using the face to face mode for discussion within their own teams, and with their partner teams (those they are giving feedback to and receiving feedback from). There was not as much discussion of the feedback, whether within the team or with the partner teams, in the online format, students reported, and they valued the opportunity for that discussion. Figl et al. conclude that it would be best to combine online, asynchronous text reviews with face to face activities, perhaps even with synchronous chat or voice options.

The study reported in Guardardo & Shi 2007 focused on asynchronous, written feedback for the most part; the authors recorded online, discussion-board feedback on essays and compared that with a later draft of each essay. They wanted to know if students used or ignored these peer comments, and what they thought of the experience of receiving the asynchronous, written feedback (they interviewed each student as well). All of the students had engaged in face to face peer feedback before the online mode, but the face to face sessions were not recorded so the nature of the comments in each mode was not compared. Thus, the results from this study that are most relevant to the present concern are those that come from interviews, in which the students compared their experiences of face to face peer feedback with the online, written, asynchronous exchange of feedback. Results were mixed, as noted in the table, but quite a few students said they felt more comfortable giving feedback without their names attached, while a significant number of students preferred the face-to-face mode because it made interacting with the reviewer/reviewee easier. The authors conclude that “online peer feedback is not a simple alternative to face-to-face feedback and needs to be organized carefully to maximize its positive effect” (458).

Cartney 2010 held a focus group of ten first-year students in a social work course who had engaged in a peer feedback exercise in which essays and comments on essays, as well as follow up discussion, was to take place over email. Relevant to the present concern is that the focus group discussion revealed that several groups did not exchange feedback forms via email but decided to meet up in person instead in order to have a more interactive discussion. Some groups did exchange written, asynchronous, online feedback, citing discomfort with giving feedback to others to their “faces.” The author concludes that there may be a need to use more e-learning in curricula in order for students to become more accustomed to using it for dialogue rather than one-way communication. But I also see this as an indication that some students recognized a value in face to face, oral, synchronous communication.

Peer feedback via electronic, synchronous text-based chat vs. oral, face to face methods

This dichotomy contrasts two sorts of synchronous methods for peer feedback and assessment: those taking place online, through text-based systems such as “chats,” and those taking place face to face, orally.

Do comments given synchronously through text-based chats differ from those given orally, face to face? And do these two modes of commenting affect students’ revisions of work differently?

A PDF version of both of the tables below can be downloaded here.

Sullivan & Pratt 1996  looked at two writing classes: in one class all discussions and peer feedback took place through a synchronous, electronic, text-based chat system and in the other discussions and peer feedback took place face to face, orally. They found that writing ability increased slightly more for the computer-assisted class over the traditional class, and that there were differences in how the students spoke to each other in the electronic, text-based chat vs. face to face, orally. The authors stated that the face to face discussion was less focused on the essay being reviewed than in the online chats (but see my criticisms of this interpretation here). They also found that the electronic chats were more egalitarian, in that the author did not dominate the conversation in them in the same way as happened with the face to face chats. The authors conclude (among other things) that discussions through online chats may be beneficial for peer assessments, since their study “showed that students in the computer-assisted class gave more suggestions for revision than students in the oral class” (500), and since there was at least some evidence for greater writing improvement in the “chat” class.

Braine 2001 (I haven’t done an earlier summary of this article in my blog) looked at students in two different types of writing classes in Hong Kong (in English), similar to those discussed in Sullivan & Pratt (1996), in which one class has all discussions and peer assessment taking place orally, and the other has these taking place on a “Local Area Network” that allows for synchronous, electronic, text-based chats. He looked at improvement in writing between a draft of an essay and a revision of that essay (final version) after peer assessment. Braine was testing students’ ability to write in English only, through the “Test of Written English.” He found that students’ English writing ability improved a bit more for the face-to-face class than the computer-mediated class, and that there were significant differences in the nature of discussions in the two modes. He concluded that oral, face-to-face discussions are more effective for peer assessment.

Liu & Sadler 2003  contrasted two modes of peer feedback in two composition classes, one of which wrote comments on essays by hand and engaged in peer feedback orally, face to face, and the other wrote comments on essays digitally, through MS Word, and then engaged in peer discussion through an electronic, synchronous, text-based chat during class time. The authors asked about differences in these  modes of commenting, and whether they had a differential impact on later essay revisions. Liu & Sadler were not focused on comparing the asynchronous commenting modes with the synchronous ones, but their results show that there was a higher percentage of “global” comments in both of the synchronous modes, and a higher percentage of “local” comments in the asynchronous ones. They also found that there was a significantly higher percentage of “revision-oriented” comments in the oral discussion than in the electronic chat. Finally, students acted more often on the revision-oriented comments given in the “traditional” mode (handwritten, asynchronous comments plus oral discussion) than in the computer-mediated mode (digital, asynchronous comments plus electronic, text-based chat). They conclude that for asynchronous modes of commenting, using digital tools is more effective than handwriting (for reasons not discussed here), and for synchronous modes of commenting, face to face discussions are more effective than text-based, electronic chats (219-221). They suggest combining these two methods for peer assessment.

Jones et al 2006  studied interactions between peer tutors in an English writing centre in Hong Kong and their clients, both in face to face meetings and in online, text-based chats. This is different from the other studies, which were looking more directly at peer assessment in courses, but the results here may be relevant to what we usually think of as peer assessment. The authors were looking at interactional dynamics between tutors and clients, and found that in the face-to-face mode, the relationship between tutors and clients tended to be more hierarchical than in the electronic, online chat mode. They also found that the subjects of discussion were different between the two modes: the face-to-face mode was used most often for “text-based” issues, such as grammar and word choice, while in the electronic chats the tutors and clients spoke more about wider issues such as content of essays and process of writing. They conclude that since the two modes differ and both serve important purposes, it would be best to use both modes.

Implications/discussion

This set of studies is not the result of a systematic review of the literature; I did not follow up on all the other studies that cited these, for example. A systematic review of the literature might add more studies to the mix. In addition, there are more variables that should be considered (e.g., whether the students in the study underwent peer assessment training, how much/what kind; whether peer assessment was done using a standardized sheet or not in each study, and more).

Nevertheless, I would like to consider briefly if these studies provide any clarity for direction regarding written peer assessment vs. oral, face-to-face.

For written, asynchronous modes of peer assessment (e.g., writing on essays themselves, writing on peer assessment forms) vs. oral, face-to-face modes, the studies noted here (van den Berg, Admiraal and Pilot (2006) and Hewett (2000)) suggest that in these two modes students give different sorts of comments, and for a fuller picture peer assessment should probably be conducted in both modes. Regarding student views of both modes (Figl et al. (2006), Guardardo & Shi (2007), Cartney (2010)), evidence is mixed, but there are at least a significant number of students who prefer face-to-face, oral discussions if they have to choose between those and asynchronous, written peer assessment.

For written, synchronous modes of peer assessment (e.g., electronic, text-based chats) vs. oral, face-to-face, the evidence here is all from students for whom English is a foreign language, but some of the results might still be applicable to other students (to determine this would require further discussion than I can engage in now). All that can be said here is that the results are mixed. Sullivan & Pratt (1996) found some, but not a lot of evidence that students using e-chats improved their writing more than those using oral peer assessment, but Braine (2001) found the opposite. However, they were using different measures of writing quality. Sullivan & Pratt also concluded that the face-to-face discussions were less focused and effective than the e-chat discussions, while Braine concluded the opposite. This probably comes down in part to interpretation of what “focused” and “effective” mean.

Liu & Sadler (2003) argued that face-to-face modes of synchronous discussion are better than text-based, electronic, synchronous chats–opposing Sullivan & Pratt–because there was a higher percentage of “revision-oriented” conversational turns (as a % of total turns) in the face-to-face mode, and because students acted on the revision-oriented comments more in the traditional class (both writing comments on paper and oral, face-to-face peer discussion) than in the computer-mediated class (digital comments in MS Word and e-chat discussions). Jones et al. (2006) found that students and peer tutors talked about different types of things, generally, in the two modes and thus concluded that both should be used. But that study was about peer tutors and clients, which is a different situation than peer assessment in courses.

So really, little can be concluded, I think, from looking at all these studies, except that it does seem that students tend to say different types of things in different modes of communication (written/asynchronous, written/synchronous, oral/face-to-face/synchronous), and that those things are all valuable; so perhaps what we can say is that using a combination of modes is probably best.

Gaps in the literature

Besides more studies to see if better patterns can emerge (and perhaps they are out there–as noted above, my literature search has not been systematic), one gap is that no one, so far, has considered video chats, such as Google Hangouts, for peer assessment. Perhaps the differences between those and face-to-face meetings might not be as great as between face-to-face meetings and text-based modes (whether synchronous chats or asynchronous, written comments). And this sort of evidence might be useful for courses that are distributed geographically, so students could have a kind of face-to-face peer assessment interaction rather than just giving each other written comments and carrying on a discussion over email or an online discussion board. Of course, the problem there would be that face-to-face interactions are best if supervised, even indirectly, so as to reduce the risk of people treating each other disrespectfully, or offering criticisms that are not constructive.

So, after all this work, I’ve found what I had guessed before starting: it’s probably best to use both written, asynchronous comments and oral, face-to-face comments for peer assessment.

 

Works Cited

Braine, G. (2001) A study of English as a foreign language (EFL) writers on a local-area network (LAN) and in traditional classes, Computers and Composition 18,  275–292. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S8755-4615(01)00056-1

Cartney, P. (2010) Exploring the use of peer assessment as a vehicle for closing the gap between feedback given and feedback used, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 35:5, 551-564. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02602931003632381

Figl, K., Bauer, C., Mangler, J., Motschnig, R. (2006) Online versus Face-to-Face Peer Team Reviews, Proceedings of Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE). San Diego: IEEE. See here for online version (behind a paywall).

Guardado, M., Shi, L. (2007) ESL students’ experiences of online peer feedback, Computers and Composition 24, 443–461. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compcom.2007.03.002

Hewett, B. (2000) Characteristics of Interactive Oral and Computer-Mediated Peer Group Talk and Its Influence on Revision, Computers and Composition 17, 265-288. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S8755-4615(00)00035-9

Jones, R.H., Garralda, A., Li, D.C.S. & Lock, G. (2006) Interactional dynamics in on-line and face-to-face peer-tutoring sessions for second language writers, Journal of Second Language Writing 15,  1–23. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jslw.2005.12.001

Liu, J. & Sadler, R.W. (2003) The effect and affect of peer review in electronic versus traditional modes on L2 writing, Journal of English for Academic Purposes 2, 193–227. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S1475-1585(03)00025-0

Sullivan, S. & Pratt, E. (1996) A comparative study of two ESL writing environments: A computer-assisted classroom and a traditional oral classroom, System 29, 491-501. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0346-251X(96)00044-9

Van den Berg, I., Admiraal, W.,  & Pilot, A. (2006) Designing student peer assessment in higher education: analysis of written and oral peer feedback, Teaching in Higher Education, 11:2, 135-147.  DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13562510500527685