April 11, 2019, by aeyskb

What Does Teaching Mean to You?

By Digital Communications team member, Immanuelle Kant.

I’ve just attended an interesting lecture on Andy Fisher and Jonathan Tallant’s Philosophy of Teaching where we discussed the enduring question: ‘What Does It Mean to Teach?’.

I am going to breakdown the main ideas from the lecture to give you a better insight into what a Philosophy lecture at UoN is really like!

*Important note: this is not about the quality of teaching

1. How do we define what teaching is?

Teaching occurs when something was learnt, or when there is the intention to teach.

However, Fisher and Tallant argue that there are scenarios where teaching can occur even if nothing has been learnt or if the teacher does not intend to teach.

Still confused? Keep reading…

 

2. How teaching is judgement dependent

The judgement dependent account of teaching is able to resolve the previous problems that the learning and intention argument raised.

Judgement dependent means whether teaching is taking place or not, it is reliant on your judgement of whether it is or not. Fisher and Tallant state that:

“X is teaching if and only if the learner, who is in ideal conditions, judges that X is teaching.”.

3. Ideal conditions for teaching

Ideal conditions are factors that enable judgements to be truth-apt (capable of being true/false).

These include:

• Environmental conditions
• Accessibility
• Pre-existing concept/knowledge
• Inclusiveness

Examples:

 

 

 

 

 

 

4. Future of teaching

Your future teacher could be a robot!

Fisher and Tallant’s account of teaching also takes a progressive stance, accepting that artificial intelligence (AI) could teach us in the future.

Finally…what does teaching mean to YOU?

Tweet us @uonnphilosophy using the hashtag #UoNInsight

Check out the Philosophy Department website

 

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