Amy has Major Issues

I’m Amy Trautwein, from the Philosophy Department. I’ve taught a variety of courses at Baruch, such as Thought and Reality, Moral Problems of Life and Death, Critical Thinking and Ethics, and (the course I will be concentrating on for this seminar) Major Issues in Philosophy.

My courses usually have about 40 students in them, though I have taught jumbos with over 100 and seminars with only about a dozen.  

Major Issues usually has about 40 students enrolled in each section. Here is the course description and list of learning goals I usually include on my syllabus for the course (though I change the questions from time to time, depending on what I choose to focus on in a given semester):

“What does one do in philosophy? Philosophers look for questions, even where you may not have thought that questions could meaningfully be asked. We look for evidence for what are the most plausible answers even for questions that you may not have believed have answers at all. We all do philosophy sometimes, even if you may not have called it that.

This course will introduce a few of those philosophical questions.  We shall focus on questions regarding humans, our possible nature and our relation to the world.  Possible issues will include considering: what is human nature, if it even exists; if free will can exist and what it might be; whether reason can prove the existence of God; the nature of truth and knowledge; whether morality is just a matter of opinions, and if not, what else it might be; and what ‘minds’ are.

            In each case, the goals for you, as a student, are to:

1. gain a clear understanding of what is being asked regarding the issue;
2. grasp the positions some philosophers have developed to try to answer the question;
3. be able to identify and understand the premises and logical structure of the arguments given for those positions; and
4. evaluate these arguments and defend your evaluation with carefully reasoned arguments of your own.

A further goal is to develop your own answers to the questions.  However, answers that satisfy you might be years in the making.  For the purpose of this course, what counts is how well you grapple with the material presented.  The ultimate goal of this course is to improve your arsenal of thinking skills and broaden your approach to the world by careful examination of specific philosophical questions and answers.”

I have a peer review assignment for which students post a short argument on a recent course topic in one week, and the next week post evaluations of some of their fellow students’ arguments, which includes a mandatory counterargument against each of those arguments. My goals for these assignments is to have students think about the material more deeply, practice organizing and expressing their thoughts and defending their views, and also engage in metacognitive reflection about what makes for good arguments and clear communication. I would like to find non-grade-oriented ways to get students to feel more motivated to do the assignment for its own sake and not just as a rote exercise.