Building Classroom and Online Community

The American Association of Philosophy Teachers (AAPT) and the APA Committee on the Teaching of Philosophy (CTP) seek presenters for a session on “Building Classroom and Online Community” at the AAPT-APA Teaching Hub at the 2025 APA Eastern Division meeting, January 8–11, in New York, New York. The AAPT-APA Teaching Hub is a collaborative meeting space hosting a series of interactive workshops and conversations designed specifically for philosophers and created to celebrate teaching within the context of the APA divisional meetings. The Teaching Hub aims to offer a range of high quality and inclusive development opportunities that address the teaching of philosophy at all levels.

SESSION GOALS: The aim of this session is to reflect on and share innovative ways of building classroom community. Building community is an important part of any class, but it’s one that’s not always given as much attention as syllabus design or assessment structure. We hope to provide an opportunity to think more directly about this important element of teaching. We’re interested in community building in both in-person and online spaces, as well as comparisons of the two.

We welcome proposals on any topic related to this theme, including (but not limited to) the following:

• What are some key dos and don’ts of building community?
• How can one build community in an online class, especially one that’s fully asynchronous? How does this differ from building community in classes delivered in person, or at least synchronously?
• Integrating community building with the class: Can we design learning activities, or even assessments, that make community building a key element of the course, rather than an add-on?
• Repairing community: What are some ways to triage classroom community that’s flagging, or more seriously broken?
• Community and learning goals: Should building community be an explicit learning goal of a course, or is it just instrumental to achieving others? Either way, how can we integrate building community and other learning goals in a philosophy class?

FORMAT: Rather than a traditional paper presentation, Teaching Hub sessions are expected to be highly interactive. Proposals should indicate how audience members will participate in the session. The primary goal for the Teaching Hub is for attendees to walk away with something concrete to deploy in their own classrooms/teaching context. 

What does the Teaching Hub mean by “highly interactive”? This includes (but is not limited to) the following:

• Presenters focusing less time on arguments for teaching some content or teaching a particular way, and more time on what it would actually look like to teach that content or teach in that way.
• Presenters thinking of the audience as their students and themselves as the facilitator/teacher. How could you cover the same content in a way that your audience participates in active learning activities during the session time?
• Presenters offering clear, practical examples of teaching methods, classroom activities, policies, practices, etc.

DEADLINE FOR PROPOSALS: August 1, 2024

SUBMISSIONS: 

• Proposals should be sent to Justin Rice ([email protected]) by August 1, with the subject line “Building Classroom and Online Community: AAPT-APA TH 2025.”
• In the body of the email, please include your name, institutional affiliation (if any), position (if any), and email contact information.
• Attached to the email, please include anonymized submission of 500–750 words (.doc, .docx, or .pdf) detailing the following: (1) describe the focus of your session; (2) an overview of how you plan to use your session time, including how you will make the session highly interactive; (3) what you hope the audience will take away from your session; and (4) if you have a strong preference for how much time you’d like. Depending on the number of acceptances and other factors, presentations typically range from 25 to 50 minutes. (Feel free not to mention this if you’re happy to tailor your timing to the session overall.)
• We aim to ensure representation of a range of voices and expect to select presenters by August 21, 2024.

Questions about this session should be directed to Justin Rice at the above email address. For general information about the AAPT-APA Teaching Hub, please visit the Teaching Hub page. For specific information about the Teaching Hub at the 2025 Eastern APA meeting in New York, please contact co-chairs Savannah Pearlman ([email protected]) and Chris Blake-Turner ([email protected]).