Jim Fieser
Philosophy

I am an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology, Philosophy and Religious Studies. For the past six years I've taught a variety of philosophy classes, but have focused mainly on Introduction to Business Ethics, which is a service course for the School of Business. Writing assignments are traditionally staples in philosophy courses, and they usually involve analyzing and critiquing ideas and passages in philosophical classics. Many of the introductory level philosophy classes - including business ethics classes - have exceptionally large enrollments, which estrict the range of possible writing assignments that a professor can reasonably grade. In response to such challenges, I have introduced a variety of manageable writing assignments in high enrollment classes. One of these involves devising 100 to 200 study questions directed at the assigned, which require answers of only a few sentences each and can be graded by secretaries or student assistants. A second type of writing assignment involves a web comment board in which students need to post short comments and respond to other comments. Colleagues interested in more information on these projects should contact jfieser@utm.edu.