I think that philosophy education should pursue a twofold aim: (1) to give students a substantive understanding of the content of a course, and (2) to help them cultivate a broad range of intellectual skills and virtues that they can carry into whatever domain they decide to dedicate themselves to. To keep both dimensions in view, I combine lecturing with class activities. I design these activities course by course, taking into account both the needs of students and practical constraints such as class size and allocated time.

While I am a philosopher and my courses are fundamentally philosophy courses, I think that problems are better understood when approached from a variety of perspectives. For this reason, I make my syllabi diverse in both cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary ways. For instance, in an introductory course on early Chinese philosophy, I might analyze the views defended in the early Chinese debate with the help of contemporary frameworks from cultural psychology. In a philosophy of mind course on consciousness, I might discuss both Indian and Western accounts, weaving them into a unified dialogue.

I take academic inquiry to be intrinsically open to a wide range of perspectives. Given that we all come to the table with our own biases, values, and preconceptions, it is by participating in open discussion with others that we can really make progress. I try to show this in practice rather than merely state it. To encourage students to share their ideas, I design various activities as small-group discussions in which students have the opportunity to test their views against those of others. I have also found small-group discussion to be a simple but effective way to encourage those who do not feel comfortable speaking in front of the whole class.

My assessment strategies are oriented toward evaluating reasoning and critical thinking rather than mere memorization. At the undergraduate level, I do so with in-class pen-and-paper exams in which students are asked to do things such as (1) compare views they have encountered in the course, (2) assess arguments in favor of or against such views, or (3) defend their own view on the topic under discussion. At the graduate level, assessment consists of take-home paper assignments. In light of the most recent developments in AI, students are not required to avoid AI; rather, they are introduced to effective ways of using it.