Course # 01:090:297:H1
Index# 10634
Monday & Wednesday 2:00 PM - 3:20 PM
College Avenue
HC-E128
Professor Justin Kalef
This seminar aims to teach a broad range of skills whose application spans a wide variety of disciplines, in an unusual and arresting way: through various sorts of puzzles. Students will also learn some of the little-known history of puzzles and their relationship to education. The students will be presented with various conundrums and be given guidance as needed to think through how to solve the seemingly unsolvable (hence learning to think through puzzles). They will also learn, through puzzles, how to think (hence, thinking, through puzzles). This is the double meaning of the course title.
The material taught in this course would be appropriate for any students interested in cultivating their problem-solving skills in a broad manner. It should stimulate a love of learning and an entrée into a diverse range of academic endeavors. The difficulty level of some puzzles in each section would probably be equally perplexing for the most astute professor as they would for a mere freshman; but the teaching will be simple enough to be accessible to the average high school student. Each unit of the course will teach important skills to the students regardless of their starting level.
About Justin Kalef
Professor Justin Kalef stands out for his innovative teaching and his contributions to philosophical pedagogy. Dr. Kalef brings to the classroom an amalgamation of the best teaching approaches from philosophy, from university teachers across the disciplines, from teachers working outside of higher education, and from his own inventiveness.
Dr. Kalef is responsible for many “only at Rutgers” teaching methods, all of which highlight the autonomy of his students as reflective and engaged learners. He developed a mastery-based method of teaching “Introduction to Logic” that allows students to work up to the full level of their abilities. Dr. Kalef is also a devotee of, and innovator in, Team-Based Learning. Dr. Kalef’s goal in the “Introduction to Philosophy” course is to ensure that every student in his courses does some original philosophical work every day he or she attends class. Dr. Kalef’s in-class team activities stress the importance of reading, thinking, and writing at a deeper level, as his focus is always on teaching the students to reason critically as philosophers rather than merely teaching them what the great philosophers wrote. This approach has the benefit of making the students responsible for their learning—not just to themselves, but to one another.
