Intentional Learning as a Model for Philosophical Pedagogy

The achievement of intentional learning is a powerful paradigm for the objectives and methods of the teaching of philosophy. This paradigm sees the objectives and methods of such teaching as based not simply on the mastery of content, but as rooted in attempts to shape the various affective and cognitive factors that influence students ’ learning efforts. The goals of such pedagogy is to foster an intentional learning orientation, one characterized by self-awareness, active monitoring of the learning process, and a desire for publicly certified expertise. I provide a number of examples of philosophy-specific teaching strategies that follow this paradigm. Seasoned academics are understandably wary of trends in pedagogical theory. Such wariness has at least two origins, I suspect. First, new pedagogical theories are often developed at such a high level of general-ity that practitioners within a discipline may find it difficult to envision applying such theories to their own teaching. Philosophers, many of whom have strong disciplinary pride and allegiance, may doubt that any