Alex Koo

Skill building is a widely recognized teaching goal in philosophy. Some well-researched skill building techniques include scaffolded assignment design, low-stakes assignments, and peer-review. Many papers have highlighted the efficacy of these techniques by demonstrating novel course and assignment design; for example, the use of blogging in philosophy courses has been shown to have positive results on student writing. While the efficacy of skill building centered course design on student learning seems uncontroversial, two major problems are typically raised: the time investment for such course design is significant and implementing these techniques in large classes is not possible. The central aim of this paper is to combat this second claim. I present a course designed around skill building that has been successfully implemented in classes of from 120 to 450 students. I show some techniques that make this implementation possible and not unwieldy, and I argue that students both improved their philosophical skills and enjoyed the course design.

I present Modern Symbolic Logic, an introductory philosophy course in first-order logic, as a blended course. A blended course integrates online video learning with in-class activities, out of class supports, and deliverables into a cohesive and mutually supporting package. Blended courses are an enhancement on hybrid courses, which focus on online video learning but not on the additional supports needed for an effective learning experience. This paper has two central aims. The first is to present a blended course in action in order to address a need in the literature for detailed reports of blended classes. The second is to advance an iterative approach to blended course design that significantly lowers the bar of entry for instructions hoping to create a blended course.