Website for HPS 2497 Teaching Practicum Fall 2020 - Spring 2021
The seminar will meet five times in the Fall and five times in the Spring with an optional meeting in the late summer 2022. In response to student feedback from earlier offerings of this practicum, the emphasis in each meeting, wherever possible, will be on group discussion and shared experiences. To enable this format, it is important that everyone come to each meeting having completed the assigned reading and preparatory assignments.
Attendance: all students interested in attending this optional session.
Review of syllabuses of 4th year graduate students who will be teaching independently this year.
We will circulate ahead of the meeting syllabuses of all 4th year
students who wish to participate.
Please send me your syllabus in email by Thursday August 25, 12
noon.
Note to syllabus writers: have you included all the verbiage required by the school?
Your preparation (to be completed in advance):
1. Reflect on your many years as a student in the classroom. Be ready to report on a good teaching experience; and on a bad teaching experience.
2. On the basis of your reflections, formulate a recommendation on something an instructor should DO; and something an instructor should NOT DO.
Assignment (to be completed by Meeting 5, December 9)
It is a school requirement that, as part of your teaching training, you observe teaching by a peer and by a faculty member and write a report on the observation. Please select one of each for observation sometime during this term. Secure their permission to observe them. A "peer" is another HPS graduate student who is teaching. To relieve the pressure on peers observed, please schedule no more than one observation for each peer.
By Friday September 16: Please inform me in email of which peer and faculty member you will observe.
Read in Advance. How Learning Works. Available through University of Pittsburgh Library link, Pitt ID required for access.
Slides used in meeting.
Complete the following assignment and email it to smitchel@pitt.edu before
9 am on Friday (so she can read them before we meet).
You are assigned to teach a course on “Introduction to the Philosophy of
Scientific Explanation”
1. Write learning outcomes for the course.
2. Write learning outcomes for the unit in that course on “Causal
Explanation.”
Fourth year students who completed this assignment in the Teaching Practicum two years ago:
EITHER:
Prepare a "concept map" for causal explanation and send it to smitchel@pitt.edu before 9 am on Friday (so she can read it before we meet).
OR
Be ready to discuss in class a reflection on the learning outcomes you have used in your teaching: what worked; what didn’t work; and how it affected your teaching.
Almost all undergraduate HPS teaching is service teaching. When I teach it, I seek to awaken a student's interest in HPS. I want them to experience the thrill of a great piece of history of science; or the satisfaction of tight philosophical analysis that breaks through an otherwise baffling conundrum.My primary goal in this teaching is to broaden the students' horizons so that they might carry an interest in HPS well past their brief university years.
Added October 21, 2022: Here is a worthy goal for undergraduate, HPS teaching. When I (Norton) was an undergraduate chemical engineering student, I had to take servicing classes in the humanities. A history of cosmology class had developed a reputation for being easy and for giving everyone in it As. So I took the class along with many other engineers. The course was not especially good. It was taught by a retired engineer who had, I can now see, a shallower grasp of the content. But he made up for that in enthusiasm. I loved the material and that positive experience induced me to take some philosophy classes and eventually to change my career to HPS.
The worthy goal: can you be the instructor in the class that induces students to study HPS further?
When we teach a history and philosophy of science class, we present students with models of good HPS and give them guidance on what makes it good, so they can do good work in HPS too. But what is good HPS?
Your preparation: Consider
examples of HPS teaching familiar to you. What made these examples
teaching of good HPS?
Almost everyone who is now in HPS were, at some point in their careers,
diverted from other studies. Relate, if you can, how that diversion
happened to you. Was it through an inspiring class you took? If so, what
was it about the class that inspired you? Is that something that you could
incorporate into your teaching?
(Assignment altered, October 21, 2022)
Background reading:
What is good history of science?
(Sources and context)
What is good philosophy of science?
(Thesis and argument)
How is history of science and
philosophy of science integrated?
(Many ways)
Examples in my teaching:
Lower level undergraduate
History of science: "Origins of Special Relativity," "Einstein's Pathway to Special Relativity."
Philosophy of Science: "Skeptical Morals"
Upper level undergraduate:
When I teach HPS 1702/1703 Junior Senior Seminar for HPS Majors and Writing Workshop, it is designed as a step-by-step guide into how to produce a piece of original HPS research that synthesizes the history and the philosophy of science. All the course materials are available at
HPS 1702/1703 Junior Senior Seminar for HPS Majors and Writing Workshop
The Case of Scientific Creationism
Please read the first chapter in Henry Morris’ Scientific
Creationism. This book was proposed by creationists as
a general high school textbook.
Bring with you to class a lesson plan for how you would use this source in
an HPS class for undergraduates. (The course could be a general philosophy
of science course, a history of science course, or a course focusing on
scientific controversy.)
Your lesson plan should address your goals in terms of
content and skills.
You should describe how you would guide students to
understand this source.
Please also reflect on how you would approach this material in such a way
as to be respectful of a diversity of religious viewpoints among students
in your course.
For students who have already participated in a session with Professor Dietrich on teaching controversial topics two years ago: Your participation in this meeting is optional. However, if you have had some experience teaching controversial topics, do come and share your experience with us.
We will share notes on the faculty teaching observed during the term. What was done well? What could be done differently?
Your written reports on the observation of both peer and faculty teaching should be submitted to me in email prior to the meeting.
AND
Retrospective review of the teaching syllabuses of classes taught in the Fall by 4th year students. (Supervised by Dzintra Ullis.)
Inclusive Pedagogy
The University of Chicago maintains a rich site devoted to inclusive
pedagogy.
https://inclusivepedagogy.uchicago.edu/diversity-and-pedagogy
Inclusivity is understood to pertain to:
Race and ethnicity, disability, religion, international, educational background.
Your preparation: Review the site and look for:
(a) something concerning inclusivity that is new to you.
(b) an inclusivity strategy that you would use.
Promoting Good Discussion
Pitt provides guidance at https://teaching.pitt.edu/graduate-student-teaching/resources/,
in the pdfs:
"Activities Which Promote General Class Discussion," p.47 in University
of Pittsburgh TA Handbook: the Teaching Experience or here.
"Examples
of classroom activities for active learning" or here
"Tips
for Encouraging Student Participation" or here
"Tips
for leading successful class discussions" or here
A simple Google search, such as on "how to promote discussion in teaching"
will lead to much material. The proposals you will find there are often
more adventurous and interesting than those in the brief "Tips" sheets.
Your preparation: Review these sites and look for one good idea that you might use in your teaching. Alternatively if you have used a technique for promoting discussion with notable success, review it for us.
What does it take to devise a new course? A sketch of the components needed is given in TA Handbook: The Teaching Assistant Experience University Center for Teaching and Learning, University of Pittsburgh. pp. 21-38. (Or pdf here). Key decisions to be taken are:
• What material will the course cover?
This is often phrased actively as "learning objectives."
• What presumptions will you make over the students prior knowledge?
• How will the course be structured?
Traditional lectures? Lectures and recitations? Mixed lecture discussions?
All discussion? More adventurous learning models?
• What teaching materials will be used?
Traditional textbooks? Web resources? Custom written materials?
• What sort of assignments will you specify?
Preparatory readings. Weekly written assignments? Term papers? Short
tests? Midterms and finals?
Second year students: Many syllabuses are available online. Identify one that you find interesting and be prepared to explain what appeals to you in it.
Fourth year students: Please relate your experiences in devising your courses and what you have learned from them, in relation to the list of questions above.
Devising schemes for assessment and then grading students occupies a major part of an instructor's life. Done well it can be a positive part of the students' education. Done poorly it can be a trial and burden for both instructor and student alike. How is assessment done well?
Your preparation:
1. Read pp. 49-76 "Evaluation" and "The Logic of Grades" in TA Handbook: The Teaching Assistant Experience (or here). Decide on a grading scheme that you feel would work in your class. Be ready also to relate your experience of what does work and does not work in grading.
2. Last term, Pitt's University Times published an article "TEACHING AT PITT: Three ideas for piloting scaled alternative grading methods." Read it and reflect on the three ideas proposed in light of your experiences being taught and as a teacher.
For fourth year students.
Optional advance reading: Worksheet for developing a teaching philosophy
statement, Components of a teaching portfolio, Worksheet for developing a
teaching portfolio, linked from Graduate Student Teaching Resources at https://teaching.pitt.edu/graduate-student-teaching/resources/
Handouts given in presentation: Handout
1, Handout
2
In the light of the discussion of teaching dossiers in this meeting, you will prepare your teaching dossier. We will discuss your teaching statement in the next meeting.
For second year students:
Your assignment for the final practicum meeting 5 is to devise a syllabus
for a fantasy, dream class you would like to teach. Draw on materials
discussed in Meetings 2 and 3 above to assist you. The University
of Pittsburgh TA Handbook: the Teaching Experience (or here)
on pp. 35-36 provides a checklist of items in a syllabus document.
(For second year students).
Present your syllabus for a fantasy, dream class for discussion.
(For fourth year students).
Present the teaching statement of your teaching dossier for discussion.
July, 2022 and later.