Creating Philosophy: Using a Cooperative Learning Approach in the Classroom

The author reports on an effort to transform traditional top-down, instructor-centered philosophy courses into courses that are open, learning-centered, and work toward a cooperative goal. After providing the underlying rationale for cooperative philosophy courses, the author describes a cooperative philosophy course where students were assigned with individually answering the question “What is Philosophy?” by creating introductory philosophy textbooks. The author provides details on how to guide students to the creation of such introductory textbooks with a variety of practical classroom exercises and suggestions for assessment. Finally, potential future applications for cooperative learning courses are discussed.