My teaching approach focuses on student-centered inquiry and skill-building while emphasizing inclusivity, flexibility, and creativity in my course design. I have experience with in-person courses, online synchronous courses, and online asynchronous courses.
My core pedagogical goal is to promote self-directed critical thinking: I want students to feel they can tackle the challenges my courses put to them in their own way, by thinking about the things that interest them and taking the approaches that work best for them. This allows students to enjoy confronting difficult concepts and completing rigorous work that they would otherwise find tedious overwhelming.
In Fall 2026, I will be teaching the following courses at Appalachian State University:
Introduction to Philosophy
Critical Thinking
Logic I
I have served as Instructor of Record for the following courses (syllabi available by request):
Making Modern Science
Anonymous student review:
This course had by far the most coherent and cohesive curriculum I have ever seen. There never was a lecture that felt out of place, each bit of information was used as context for the next. Sometimes building upon, other times a different perspective. True has really spent the effort to create a course that, while offering much more to be studied, has wholly captured what modern science is. Which is honestly what a GE course should do. I really enjoyed this class.
Philosophy of Sex and Gender
Anonymous student review:
He is very enthusiastic about teaching. He has very thorough lectures and he explains concepts in a way that is understandable. He always has time for questions from students and takes the time to explain concepts to make sure we all understand. He also keeps us updated and reminds us what is due and when it is due.
I have served as a Teaching Assistant for several other courses (all at UC Irvine), including:
Introduction to Symbolic Logic
Critical Reasoning
Knowledge: A User’s Guide (Honors)
Causal Reasoning (Honors)
Introduction to Inductive Logic
Philosophy of Sex and Gender