For example, the traditional method of instruction, consisting of lecture from the professor combined with independent reading and memorization by the student, can be effective in teaching foreign language vocabulary and grammar; names and dates in a history course; or complex equations in math and science courses.  But a student who only knows the grammar and vocabulary of  language, or a set of formal equations, will probably not be able to apply these in practical situations.  Thus foreign language courses must be interactive, requiring students to express and understand expressions they have never heard before and forcing them to internalize rules so that they can apply them subconsciously.  Science courses similarly require students to solve novel problems.

In the fields I have taught the most, though, the application is not so clear or so easy.  It was not until I was approaching the end of my M.A. that I felt I knew what constituted a good philosophy paper, and even many professionals in the field of philosophy are not original or creative thinkers.  To expect an undergraduate in a first or second year philosophy course to produce novel and "grammatical" arguments is far too stringent a requirement, but with a little guidance and a lot of advanced planning from the professor a student should be able to reconstruct, as though by a truly original thought process, steps in arguments that have probably been made before, but are new to the student.  The analogy to this situation in the language class is the exercise that requires students to converse about a specific arena, such as favorite foods or places they have visited.  While none of the sentences generated will be truly original, the process of generating them will serve the student much better than the rote memorization and pronunciation of model conversations.

The third goal is probably the most overlooked.  Many professors assume that their students already have good study skills, and know the essentials of normative English grammar and usage.  When students demonstrate that they do not, these professors reply that it is not their job to teach remedial skills.  It is my position that PROFESSORS MUST TEACH WHATEVER THEIR STUDENTS MOST NEED TO LEARN, and if this means teaching "remedial" skills, so be it.  Without acquiring those skills, students cannot progress to the higher levels expected of them in college, and the end result of not going back to basics will be a general decline in standards of excellence in higher education.  Of course, professors in philosophy and history and religious studies should not spend all their time teaching reading and writing and study skills, but if in each course the professor is willing to devote some time to teaching these skills, and then in applying those skills to real problems in the discipline, the end result will be higher achievement of students across the board.

Since I believe that the best way for students to learn to think about a subject is by requiring them to talk or write about it, I always include time for class discussion and writing assignments in my syllabuses.  In introductory history courses, in particular, students often contend that they do not know enough to carry on a useful conversation, and this attitude can pose a real challenge to the instructor, but I have found that good planning plus a knowledge of what might interest the students can generally support some class discussion.

It should be clear that philosophy courses provide an ideal environment to teach critical thinking skills and the rudiments of logical analysis.  But the techniques used in good philosophy courses can be applied to any field.  I took it as a compliment when a student who had taken one semester of Latin with me later stopped to tell me that he had learned a great deal about English during that semester, things he never had learned during English classes in high school.  When I teach Latin, I also teach a lot about the way languages work, and the student had, mostly on his own, subsequently applied these insights to his native language.  Latin is a dead language, but this student took from my course not only some facts about Latin grammar and vocabulary, but also a new way of thinking about language, and this is a skill that is transferable to a variety of practical situations.  Similarly, when I taught Classical Mythology, a student told me, as a way of expressing a difficulty he was having with the material a couple of weeks into the semester, that he had taken several philosophy courses before, so he understood generally how the class was progressing.  I took it as a compliment that clearly he felt that I was teaching mythology like a philosophy class, because this implied that I was emphasizing the critical thinking component.