If philosophy is a practice of self-inquiry, my primary teaching goal is to empower my students to articulate, contextualize, and critique their own positions. Second, we aim to approach disagreement with others productively and with compassion. Bearing witness to students' self-discovery is a privilege of teaching, and I employ a variety of methods to bring this about dialogically.

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Nothing keeps wonder alive for me like witnessing students' first encounter with philosophical thinking. My approach to teaching introductory courses is one of collaborative passion. Each year, I teach several sections of "Philosophy and the Good Life" at Gannon University, a first year core course in thematic questions and abiding concerns of philosophical inquiry, in which we interrogate what it means to live well and how to pursue that goal. As a teaching fellow at Boston College, I regularly taught, as sole instructor, a full-year core seminar, "Philosophy of the Person," introducing students to key thinkers and questions in the western philosophical tradition, with an emphasis on ethics and questions of human nature.

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In addition to my regular intro offerings, I teach 200-level classes including Women in Western Philosophy and courses in Gannon's History of Philosophy cycle. In these courses, we build on the foundations from introductory courses to expand our sense of influence in the one case, or deepen our understandings of the foundations of philosophical thinking, in the other. I regularly develop new courses to reach students where they're at, and regularly solicit student input to find out content that would pique their interest.

 

To encourage students to consider philosophy's relevance beyond the classroom, and to engage students with a variety of interests and backgrounds, I often pair our core texts with materials from other disciplines, popular culture, or contemporary issues in the news. I am practiced teaching in multiple modalities including in-person, hybrid, and remote. To read more about one example of my pedagogy in practice, take a look at my blog post for the American Philosophical Association's Teaching & Learning Video Series. 

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Students consistently affirm my commitment to ensuring our classroom is a welcoming space for vulnerable discussion where diverse and often divergent views are taken seriously and treated with respect.