Overview

Successful teaching does not happen by accident. It is not due to a natural aptitude. Successful teaching is a product of engagement with course material and careful planning coupled with a willingness to adapt on the fly.

My approach to teaching has three major features:

1. Student engagement. One of the most important tasks for a teacher is to encourage and maintain each students’ engagement with the course material.
2. Practical applicability. I want each student to learn something that they find useful for some aspect of their lives outside of the course. Much of this goal is achieved by emphasizing argument analysis in all of my courses. Such tangible evidence of the transferability of the course material makes students more willing to engage in careful philosophical criticism—especially if they are not philosophy majors or minors.
3. Accessibility and adaptability. It is important to me that my courses are accessible to all students. I use the technology that is available to me to the greatest extent possible. I use online delivery platforms in all of my courses as a centralized location for all course-related information. I value diversity, both in course material and class participation.

The success that I have enjoyed by following this approach to teaching has revealed to me my greatest strength for teaching: consistency. I know that whatever course I teach, I will bring a consistently excellent level of quality in terms of both philosophical content and student satisfaction. I recognize that successful teaching requires constant hard work, and act accordingly.

Course Descriptions

Living Our Digital Lives

Students explore many philosophical problems arising from modern technology, including: the dangers of trolling and groupthink; disagreement and toleration; political extremism and YouTube profiteering; the nature of and our ethical obligations to video game characters; posthumanism and artificial intelligence, and, whether you should share your Netflix password. Through intensive self-reflection, short writing exercises, and formal tests, students engage with the fundamentals of philosophical thought and practice including introspection, critical thinking, logical analysis, and practical application. Students examine a variety of topics which challenge their relationship with technology.

Sheridan College

Philosophy from the Inside Out

Students explore many problems of Western philosophy, including consciousness, personal identity, free will, ethical action, civic virtue, and civil disobedience. Through intensive self-reflection, short writing exercises, and formal tests, students engage with the fundamentals of philosophical thought and practice including introspection, critical thinking, logical analysis, and practical application. Students examine a variety of topics which move from the personal to the interpersonal, thereby giving them a clearer sense of their place in society and their roles and duties as citizens of humanity.

Sheridan College

Believing in a Social World

Students explore many problems of Western philosophy, including skepticism, the ethics of belief, disagreement, testimony, toleration, expertise, and democratic decision-making. Through intensive self-reflection, short writing exercises, and formal tests, students engage with the fundamentals of philosophical thought and practice including introspection, critical thinking, logical analysis, and practical application. Students examine a variety of topics which clarify their rights and responsibilities as co-creators of knowledge in a democratic society.

Sheridan College

The Philosophical Life

Students examine classical and contemporary philosophical views on living a philosophical life in the face of life’s dilemmas. They examine their own lives to determine what contributes a philosophically good life. Main foci include philosophical perspectives on friendship, pleasure, happiness, morality, personal identity, freedom, and responsibility. Various philosophical readings, audio-visuals, and lectures introduce students to philosophical ideas and ways of examining life. Philosophical thought experiments and dilemmas hone thinking and problem-solving skills, and foster self-knowledge. Reflective decision-making projects, and other individual evaluation components aim to augment and intensify students’ philosophical explorations.

Sheridan College