Philosophy, et cetera

This semester, I got my 'Effective Altruism' class to decide how to allocate $5000 in donations between the four EA funds . (Half th...

This past week I ran a 'Giving Game' for my Effective Altruism class, letting each student decide (after class discussion) how to al...

A few people have asked for my EA syllabus from last term, so I thought I'd share it here with some general reflections. It was a fun ...

I had always assumed that only ultimate ends, or telic / final / non-instrumental desires, could be intrinsically  irrational.  (Think Futur...

In my Effective Altruism class this past week I've run a "giving game", getting the students, in small groups, to discuss ...

I'm currently teaching a class on "Effective Altruism" (vaguely related to this old idea , but based around MacAskill's ne...

If anyone's interested, I've updated my Grading with Google Docs python scripts to work with the latest gdata library from Google. ...

I think a lot of people -- and perhaps especially college undergrads -- want their lives to "make a difference". So I think it...

Helen and I have been thinking we'd like to put together a syllabus for an undergrad course that isn't bound by any unifying theme o...

I like having students submit their work electronically, rather than dealing with reams of paper. But I don't so much like dealing with ...

I'd be curious to hear from other college teachers what kinds of structured activities they've found to work well for philosophy dis...

One of my best students recently asked how he could further improve his philosophical work. It's something I occasionally wonder for mys...

Much philosophical thinking requires a solid grasp of the difference between what's true and what's demonstrable . This doesn't...

What is the best way to teach students how to write philosophy papers? My current plan is to (i) assign Jim Pryor's guidelines as a pre...

I've previously suggested that schools should focus more on developing cognitive skills rather than the rote memorization of facts. As ...

Weatherson had an interesting post a while back on " 101 teaching ", specifically whether it's preferable to go for breadth or...

Trent at the newly revived Rochester philosophy blog has a couple of recent posts on pedagogy, describing how he introduces modal operators ...

I recently volunteered for a mentoring program which paired me up with a gifted 10-year old who is interested in philosophy. The idea is th...