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Teaching

An Experiment in the (Re)Distribution of Grades: UPDATE (2026)

September 5, 2026 Leigh M. Johnson Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Blog, Capitalism, citizenship, Codifying Civility and Collegiality, critical thinking, Democracy, ERG, Ethics, Internet, Marx, Media, Open Source Pedagogy, Pedagogy, Philosophy, Social Media, Teaching Comments Off on An Experiment in the (Re)Distribution of Grades: UPDATE (2026)

Do “grades” even matter anymore?

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An Experiment in the (Re)distribution of Grades (Part 3)

September 5, 2026 Leigh M. Johnson Blog, citizenship, Codifying Civility and Collegiality, Democracy, ERG, Ethics, Justice, Labor Issues, Pedagogy, Politics, Professional Academy, Public Philosophy Comments Off on An Experiment in the (Re)distribution of Grades (Part 3)

Why don’t we give students space to critically reflect upon the way they are assessed?

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An Experiment in the (Re)Distribution of Grades (Part 2)

September 4, 2026 Leigh M. Johnson Blog, Capitalism, Codifying Civility and Collegiality, Democracy, ERG, Ethics, Justice, Public Philosophy Comments Off on An Experiment in the (Re)Distribution of Grades (Part 2)

Pearl clutch! Turns out Gen Z is socialist!

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An Experiment in the (Re)Distribution of Grades

September 4, 2026 Leigh M. Johnson Blog Comments Off on An Experiment in the (Re)Distribution of Grades

What if “pointless points” could be redistributed?

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Dear Student, At The End Of The Semester

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Open Source Pedagogy, Philosophy, RMWMTMBM Archive, Teaching Comments Off on Dear Student, At The End Of The Semester
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How It Will Go, Episode 5: Teaching J.S. Mill

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson HIWG, Open Source Pedagogy, Philosophy, RMWMTMBM Archive, Teaching Comments Off on How It Will Go, Episode 5: Teaching J.S. Mill

This is the fifth installment of my series How It Will Go, documenting the regularity of students’ responses to certain figures/texts and, in the occasional rare instance that it happens, noting whatever variations I witness. Today’s episode: John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism Context in which I teach this figure text: Like Kant, I teach some variation of…

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Trolleys, Fat Men and Drones

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Open Source Pedagogy, Philosophy, Politics, RMWMTMBM Archive, Teaching Comments Off on Trolleys, Fat Men and Drones

Just a random”Philosophy pedagogy” insight today: I’m teaching three sections of a course entitled “Contemporary Moral Problems” at Christian Brothers University this term, which is more or less CBU’s version of  “Intro to Ethics.”  As I’ve done in all of my past Ethics courses, I spend the second day of class leading students through a…

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Studenting White Quarantined

March 15, 2020 Leigh M. Johnson coronavirus, COVID-19, Open Source Pedagogy, Public Philosophy, RMWMTMBM Archive, Teaching Comments Off on Studenting White Quarantined

I created this infographic for my students. Feel free to steal, share, edit, whatevs. You can also access it at this link.

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What To Assign If You Want To Teach The Future (Redux)

January 9, 2020 Leigh M. Johnson Emergent Tech, Open Source Pedagogy, Philosophy, Public Philosophy, RMWMTMBM Archive, Teaching, Technology, Technology and Human Values Comments Off on What To Assign If You Want To Teach The Future (Redux)

ICYMI, I posted the first iteration of “What To Assign If You Want To Teach The Future” last year at the conclusion of my advanced seminar called “Technology and Human Values.” I’m now teaching that course every semester and, because both emerging technology and the scholarship about it is being produced at a mind-boggling pace,…

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Helping Students Become “One-Handed” Writers

October 17, 2019 Leigh M. Johnson Ethics, Open Source Pedagogy, Philosophy, Public Philosophy, RMWMTMBM Archive, Teaching, Technology, Technology and Human Values Comments Off on Helping Students Become “One-Handed” Writers

There has been a push recently to encourage more “forward facing” philosophy, a long overdue and welcome development in our profession. However, for better or worse, what gets called “public philosophy”– the aim of this push– remains pretty vaguely defined. On the one hand, some argue that public philosophy should have real-world applications, though their…

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