In this paper we argue that God and the Good Life, a prominent philosophy as a way of life (PWOL) undergraduate course, serves the needs of novices in philosophy classrooms, whether they plan to continue in the study of philosophy or not. We draw from both philosophy and educational psychology in making our case and highlight four distinctive components of God and the Good Life pedagogy at the University of Notre Dame: 1) transformative learning goals, 2) immersive experiences, 3) deep (...) personal connections to students’ everyday lives, and 4) cooperative relationships of mutual support in a community of dialogue. We end with a coda on even wider relevance for PWOL pedagogies in bringing about the pluralistic society we hope for, even in our deeply polarized societal moment. (shrink)

First-generation college students are a unique population of undergraduates with different backgrounds, strengths, and challenges compared to their continuing generation (not first-generation) peers. These students have the potential to perform well as novice philosophers but may require some additional supports. First-generation students are especially at risk for not being retained by their university at the end of their first year. Given that introductory philosophy courses tend to be taken by first-year students, instructors of these courses can impact student retention, both (...) at the institution and within the discipline. This essay outlines the characteristics of first-generation students, the role instructors play in their success, and specific considerations for working with this undergraduate population in introductory philosophy classrooms. (shrink)

The act of welcoming is often the first step in shaping the participatory contours of a collective’s social landscape. How and if individuals are invited into a space is often a product of the formal and informal social mechanisms used to facilitate newcomer or returner inclusion or exclusion. Notably, philosopher Iris Marion Young points out that greetings, as everyday communicative gestures, amount to acts of public acknowledgment. Moreover, during a successful greeting, Young argues that greeters announce themselves as “ready to (...) listen” and “takes responsibility for her relationship to her interlocutors,” in addition to meeting the greeted’s basic need for recognition. In light of these observations, this paper argues that we have good reasons to think that welcomings, as a subcategory of greetings, require us to adapt our classroom communication norms, policies, assignments, and curricula in important ways. Specifically, they should change to publicly acknowledge our students’ dignity as potential knowers; to see them as contributors to the classroom space. Additionally, this paper offers a non-exhaustive list of three guidelines that can be useful when navigating these efforts and the challenges associated with the practice of welcoming. (shrink)

While recently hyped as a defense against AI plagiarism, oral exams have fallen out of favor in American philosophy departments. They are often perceived as part of an antiquated system where the day-to-day coursework is sharply distinguished from a 100% weighted final exam, with a more oppositional than collaborative student-professor relationship. Such examinations do not lend themselves to blind grading, and also reinforce the existing privilege of students who are confident, fast-spoken, and know what to study. This kind of oral (...) examination is clearly at odds with the contemporary transparent and collaborative process embodied in techniques like specifications grading, with its proven benefits for novice philosophy students in introductory-level courses. I want to defend a rather different role for oral exams. Novice philosophy students need rapid feedback in order to know whether they have correctly understood the expectations embodied in syllabi and rubrics. Six best practices are offered for achieving this goal while minimizing drawbacks. (shrink)

Inspired by the practice of dialogue in ancient philosophical schools, the Philosophy as a Way of Life (PWOL) Project at the University of Notre Dame has sought to put dialogue back at the center of philosophical pedagogy. Impromptu philosophical dialogue, however, can be challenging for students who are new to philosophy. Anticipating this challenge, the Project has created a series of manuals to help instructors conduct dialogue groups with novice philosophy students. Using these guidelines, we incorporated PWOL-style dialogue groups into (...) our Spring 2021 course “The Philosophy of Race, Class, and Gender” with the hope that, through having conversations about these challenging topics, our students would both be able to practice having philosophical dialogues as well as form their views on race and gender in light of contributions from their diverse peers. This article examines several strategies for how instructors can seek to incorporate similar dialogues into their own introductory classroom. (shrink)

Distance Learning (DL) courses have become ubiquitous, especially since the pandemic. Having had some experience with DL in high school, first-year students might be inclined to enroll in DL courses. Other students take DL because of completing demands on their time, such as work, family, or athletics participation, and some students just like the flexibility afforded by DL courses. However, many college students are unprepared for the self-regulative practices, including time management and assistance-seeking behaviors, required for success in a DL (...) course. (shrink)

This essay fills in some historical, conceptual, and pedagogical gaps that appear in the most visible and recent professional efforts to “revive” Philosophy as a Way of Life (PWOL). I present “American Philosophy and Self-Culture” as an advanced undergraduate seminar that broadens who counts in and what counts as philosophy by immersing us in the lives, writings, and practices of seven representative U.S.-American philosophers of self-culture, community-building, and world-changing: Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790), Frederick Douglass (1818–1895), William Ellery Channing (1780–1842), Henry David (...) Thoreau (1817–1862), Margaret Fuller (1810-1850), Henry Bugbee (1915–1999), and Gloria Anzaldúa (1942–2004). Students enter the class with preconceptions about who philosophers are, what they do, how they write, and the languages in which they write. Students walk out with new senses of self, place, and language that emerge through new ways of seeing, doing, and writing philosophy. (shrink)