Polling as Pedagogy

I thought some of you might be interested in a pedagogical piece that Eddy and I co-authored that just came out in Teaching Philosophy.  In short, we give a brief introduction to experimental philosophy and we try to show that formally polling students is a very useful way of teaching philosophy regardless of whether some traditional philosophers happen to think that it is not a useful way of doing academic philosophy.  We also provide an appendix that contains a number of thought experiments that could be used in the classroom.  There's obviously nothing philosophically high powered going on the article, but you may nevertheless enjoy it!

Download polling_as_pedagogy.pdf

Comments

[Pete Mandik]

Nice paper, guys. I've been polling my philosophy students for years, and it's a lot of fun. One thing I'd like to add to the recommendations in the paper is that before the results are revealed to the rest of the class, have each student predict what they think the majority and minority positions will be.

One of the great benefits of philosophical instruction, especially at introductory levels, is the ability to appreciate that one's own viewpoint may not necessarily be the default way of viewing things. These polling techniques really help convey that. And to echo something that you guys point out in the paper, students are VERY interested in hearing why other students gave opposing answers.

[Matthew Pianalto]

Nice. I'm about to do a study on the experience machine, and in recruiting some other people in my department to give the survey in their classes, I pointed out that this is a good in-road to discussion.

[hagop sarkissian]

Nice paper! I had read a version of it before heading into the Fall semester, and the techniques you mentioned really worked to generate discussion in my medical ethics class.

(I should also say that, having just been on the market, having this kind of concrete experience using a particular classroom teaching method helped a great deal.)

[Eddy Nahmias]

Wow, thanks for the positive feedback on the paper. I need to follow our advice even more than I do, since every time I do use careful polling, it generates great discussion. I think if we'd written this paper more recently (than two years ago--aren't journals great!), we'd have lots more good cases to use (e.g., the stuff on consciousness) and more good advice.

So, if anyone has any concrete cases or suggestions on how to use exp phil in teaching, please post it here...