Harry Coverston
College of Arts and Humanities
Philosophy

Year Awarded: 2009

Teaching Philosophy

At the heart of my teaching philosophy is the principle of engagement. There is much research documenting that students who are not engaged in their own learning do not learn as much. In pursuit of that goal I create a wide range of exercises which I collect and grade designed to help students analyze and apply ideas from the course material. I use group work extensively, often breaking down course material into smaller chunks which groups analyze and report their consensus back to the larger class.

A second focus of my pedagogy is an approach which seeks a deeper understanding of ideas, not the mere collection of data. My questions often focus on why rather than what. Indeed, a favorite response to any point raised in class is simply, “OK, that’s the what. Now, so what? What difference does this make?” My goal is to encourage a critical consciousness of the status quo which is often described as “common sense” – Common to whom? Sensible in what way?

My teaching strategies always contain elements of student accountability. Aside from traditional assessments such as tests and papers, these include students working in groups, evaluating their own efforts, those of their group members and serving as an evaluating audience for other presentations. At the end of each semester, students account for the last 25 points of their participation grade through an evaluation of their own engagement of the class (including the reasons they deserve that grade) in areas ranging from preparation to academic honesty. Finally students write summary reflection papers in which they discuss what they know about being human that they did not know prior to the course and what they have learned about themselves – human beings – in the process.

There are many ways to communicate to students that you are interested in their learning. For my classes they include taking attendance, creating assignments due at class which require preparation and keeping regular office hours. I always learn from my students every semester and I observe that in participatory classes, they are able to learn from each other as well.