Teaching & Learning Philosophy
Eight principles guide how I design courses, mentor graduate students, and train teachers — and how I think about grading.
The best way to become a lifelong learner is through:
- Self-assessing our abilities. Accurately understanding what we know and don't know is the starting point for improvement.
- Engaging in problem-based learning. Real, unresolved problems teach differently than exercises with known answers.
- Teaching ourselves. Learners who can direct their own study can keep learning long after a course ends.
- Attempting things on our own. Productive struggle builds skills that being shown an answer does not.
- Learning from our own failures and the strengths of our peers. Mistakes and collaboration are both sources of growth.
- Applying skills to new problems. Transfer — not just recall — is the mark of real learning.
- Self-reflecting on performance. Regularly stepping back to evaluate our own work sharpens judgment.
- Making goals for continuous improvement. Growth needs a direction, not just effort.
“To that end, we will be fellow travelers. I will present real-world problems to which I do not have the answer(s), but I will coach you as you follow this process to gain abilities you can use beyond the classroom. We will strive to develop essential skills of initiative, auto-didacticism, mentoring others, critical thinking, reasoning with data, and sound written & oral communication.” — Troy L. Cox
An Open Letter to Students About My Grading Philosophy
I sometimes explain grading to students by imagining the two very different letters of recommendation I could end up writing about them.
I deliberately design my classes so there is abundant flexibility for students to engage in learning activities that are helpful to them, while also developing skills needed in academia and industry — especially self-directed learning, critical thinking, critiquing arguments, interpreting data, numeracy, and written and spoken communication. Many low-stakes assignments throughout the semester give students room to learn on their own, alongside a major project — often a group project — where they showcase emerging skills in a real-world, experiential way.
The only thing I ask is dedicated time on task: for every course credit, roughly two hours (undergraduate) to three hours (graduate) of a student's best work outside of class. For a 3-credit graduate course, that's about 9 hours a week outside class plus 3 hours together — 12 hours total. I believe the only way to improve is through dedicated time on task and deliberate practice.
Two possible letters of recommendation
“My experience with [this student] was that they actively wanted to learn and were eager to apply the principles not only in this class, but in other areas as well. They looked for ways to incorporate what they read and studied, worked well with others in the group, and showed evidence of both mastering the material and the requisite skills. While not perfect, there was constant improvement — in fact, they went above my expectations and surprised me, because I had never considered it from that perspective before.”
“My experience with [this student] was that they searched for the minimum that could be done to get the job done. I am not certain if they cared whether they truly learned about what the class covered, but were more worried about grades than substantive learning. Rather than engaging with the material, they complained of it as busy work and rarely mentioned what they had read or incorporated it in other ways. They didn't tolerate ambiguity very well and wanted checklists of what needed to be completed.”
To my students
If you have questions about how to make a project or assignment a beneficial part of a professional portfolio and how to use it to improve your learning, I am glad to help. If you want to find the minimum needed to get an "A," I think you've missed the point of this philosophy.
- I don't expect perfection.
- I expect sustained effort.
- I expect a sincere desire to improve and learn.
- I expect evidence of skill development.
If you can honestly say the coursework is taking substantially more than the expected hours outside of class, please talk with me — let's find how the course can get through to you, instead of you just getting through the course.