Teaching

My job is to demystify the educational experience so that students at any level of education are in a position to succeed. In the teaching of undergraduate students, I specialize in philosophical methods and philosophical writing as the key inroad to success in the philosophy classroom. In the teaching of graduate students, I focus on various aspects of professionalization, including writing, but also I provide pedagogical training and offer consultations on individual development plans, funding applications, and other core aspects of life as a PhD.

View my Teaching Statement online or feel free to download it.

Undergraduate Teaching & Pedagogy

Sole Instructor

As sole instructor, I have taught two undergraduate courses:  Introduction to Ethics (a lower division ethics course), Punishment and Responsibility (an upper division ethics course), and Political Philosophy. In these classes, I teach contemporary topics in moral theory by primarily living philosophers.

You can view and download sample syllabi on the Job Docs page.

Teaching Assistant

I have worked as a Teaching Assistant for 10 courses, amounting to 20 discussion sections with around 30 students in each section. These discussion sections are taught independent of the lecture, and the content and format of these sections are largely left to the discretion of the Teaching Assistant.

In section, I focus on relaying the underlying structure and narrative of the course, teaching philosophical writing, and facilitating discussion.

Ethics Bowl Program

I am delighted to have had the opportunity to work with undergraduates and high school students from diverse backgrounds, teaching specialized topics in contemporary ethical issues, as the Director of the UCSB Ethics Bowl Program. We started with the Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl Team in 2014. Under my supervision, our talented undergraduate students have won first place at the regional competition for the last 4 years.

Many students participating in the Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl Program continue on to attend PhD programs in Philosophy or pursue high-paying careers in industry.

Student testimonials are available here on my website.

As of 2018-2019, we have initiated the Santa Barbara Regional High School Ethics Bowl Program. We held our first invitational in May 2019. This work has been supported by the APA, MAP, the Marc Sanders Foundation, and the UC Humanities research Institute.

Recently, I developed a methods & pedagogy course for participants in the Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl Program who conduct philosophy outreach as mentors for the High School Ethics Bowl Program.

You can learn more about our recent initiatives on the News page.

Graduate Student Teaching & Pedagogy

In 2014, I joined the UC Humanities Research Institute as a member of the Humanists@Work Graduate Advisory Committee. For the year of my tenure on the committee (and in subsequent years as an affiliated PhD student), I worked as a part of a multi-campus interdisciplinary team to develop a highly experimental model of participatory graduate student professionalization.

I co-organized two Humanists@Work Graduate Career Workshops – held in Sacramento and Los Angeles. In addition to facilitating and moderating several discussions during these and other workshops, I have since presented on panels discussing the Humanists@Work methods at the 2018 Western Association of Graduate Schools conference, as well as at the 2018 Connected Academics Summer Institute held at Georgetown University.

See some reflections HERE