C1. Currency in specialist area and relation to wider context

My specialist area is philosophy, broadly construed to include critical thinking, ethics, and religious studies, and within this field I have research specialisms in topics in philosophy of language and philosophy of psychology. I have BA and Masters degrees in the subject, and I maintain currency in a variety of ways: through my PhD studies (now nearly complete), which keep me in regular contact with academics at the University of Sheffield; through online resources, especially journals; through attendance at conferences worldwide; through a network of colleagues and friends in the field (including my partner, who is a professional philosopher), and so on (for more discussion see my concurrent QTLS application). I am also passionate about the wider role of philosophy and its value for laypeople, educators, and children. I am particularly excited by the Philosophy for Children movement, and I plan to take an active role in it in the future. For testimonials to my expertise, please see this and this.

C2. Enthusing and motivating learners in specialist area

I am passionate about philosophy and critical thinking and their empowering role, and I take every opportunity to enthuse my students about them, both formally, through lessons in the subject, and informally, through exemplifying and inculcating philosophical skills in my teaching of other subjects. The results have been excellent. My students love philosophy, and my classes are frequently oversubscribed. Many of my former FE and adult education students have gone to study philosophy at university, and my primary school pupils are clamouring for me to run a school debating society (which I plan to do). As evidence I would cite this testimonial and this and this.

C3. Enabling learners to achieve their goals within the specialist area

Philosophy is a challenging subject, requiring hard thinking about difficult topics. However, in my experience, students also find it enormously exciting. They are thus strongly motivated to meet and overcome the challenges, and I use my professional skills to help them do so. My basic techniques for teaching philosophy are the same as those described in earlier in B1-B2: I use scaffolding to introduce concepts and theories, and I tailor my approach to age, class size, and individual needs. I typically prepare handouts with bullet-point summaries, examples, and questions for both individual and group discussion. With younger students, I make heavy use of stories, real-life cases, and imaginary scenarios, and I do not hesitate to simplify issues (temporarily) in order to give students a way in. Using these methods I have managed to get young students (3rd and 5th graders) to deal in a mature and sophisticated fashion with difficult topics, such as abortion, bullying, and racism. For testimony, see this and this, and for self-reflection see this blog post.

C4 Good practice in teaching specialism and relevant transferable skills.

As well as teaching philosophy formally as a subject, as just described, I also teach philosophical skills informally in the course of other lessons. Philosophical training is essentially a training in clear thinking, analysis, and rational debate, and it thus inculcates hugely important transferable skills, which can be applied in almost every area of study, and, indeed, of life. Other transferable philosophical skills I seek to inculcate include skills in interpreting texts, doing research, note taking, summarising, presenting ideas, detecting logical fallacies, and expressing oneself clearly. Even young learners can benefit hugely from these skills, which they can practice, for example, in group work or individual presentations. (See again the evidence cited above.)