Incorporating Ethics into PBL

1. Incorporating Ethics into PBL Richard A. Burgess Deputy Director National Institute for Engineering Ethics T-STEM Center at Texas Tech University

2. Discussion • What is the Good Life? What does it require (e.g. people, resource, time, etc.)? Have you achieved the Good Life or are you still in pursuit of it? Are all forms of the Good Life equally valid? Explain and justify your answers. • Reflection/Writing • Discussion

3. Discussion - Afterward • Please keep your answers in mind throughout the workshop • Thinking about this activity in the context of PBL • Reflection exercises like these can help promote critical thinking. What did you notice about your answers? Did they change with discussion?

4. The Dialectic • “Be like Socrates…” • Using questions to guide discussion • Counterexamples • Critical examination without character assassination

5. Introduction • The Murdough Center and National Institute for Engineering Ethics (NIEE) • Collaboration between the T-STEM Center and NIEE • Overview • Why is it important to incorporate ethics in PBL? • What is ethics and how should we teach it? • Teaching ethics in a PBL context.

6. Motivating Ethics in PBL • A great deal of physical, emotional, and financial damages have resulted from unethical behavior. Some quick examples: • Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme • The collapse of ENRON • The Gulf oil spill • The importance of ethics cannot be emphasized enough in light of these tragedies and failures.

7. Motivating Ethics (continued) • Ethics is not simply about preventing bad behavior. • Ethics is also about grappling with some of the most complex challenges facing human beings. • How do we promote the availability of information while protecting individual identity and privacy? • How do we meet our energy needs and desires today without compromising those of future generations?

8. SECTION Call to Action GOES HE • As our society works to increase the number of people working in STEM, it is imperative that we, as educators, convey the importance of ethics in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

9. Critical Thinking • Ethics education has the potential to improve critical thinking skills. • In ethics education, we aim to: • Increase our students’ sensitivity to ethical issues • Improve their ability to reason about these issues. • Critical thinking has been a hallmark of teaching and testing standards for years – this is unlikely to change.

10. Defining Ethics • Teaching ethics is deceptively complex. • Ethics is the careful and rigorous examination of our beliefs about right/wrong and good/bad. • The study of ethics helps us to see the complexity around us and provides tools to address that complexity.

11. Morality vs. Ethics • Morality vs. ethics – “morality” is sometimes used to refer to the beliefs taught to us by family, religion, and society. This is distinct from “ethics” which is the systematic examination of these and other beliefs.

12. Description vs. Prescription • People often mistake these when both discussing and teaching ethics. • Description: describing what IS the case or what people DO believe. • Prescription: discussing how things OUGHT to be or what we SHOULD do. • Genuine ethics education requires that we move beyond description. Descriptive observations do not necessarily nullify the validity of prescriptions.

13. Origin vs. Expression • Concern about incorporating ethics into the classroom - stepping on parental territory regarding moral education. • We can discuss ethical issues and principles without necessarily discussing their origins. • The Golden Rule

14. Being Judgmental/Making a Judgment • Because an important part of ethics involves critically examining the views of others, there is a worry that we will become judgmental in the process. • “Being judgmental” is often the result of being shallow, myopic and arrogant. • “Making a judgment” about an issue involves carefully considering all sides of an issue and coming to a well-reasoned conclusion about it.

15. Process vs. Outcome • Ethics education: emphasis on process vs. conclusion. • Some of the best outcomes come from the thoughtful discussion of an issue or challenge. • This discussion is sustained and improved through the use of critical, challenging questions. • It is possible to challenge a student’s view without him/her feeling attacked in the process.

16. Inconsistencies • It is common for students to contradict themselves when discussing ethics. • Contradictions are an opportunity for growth (improving reasoning). • Ask the students if they see any problem with the inconsistency and, if so, how they would address this.

17. Incorporating Ethics into PBL • We recognize that teachers already face daunting curriculum challenges. • We advocate incorporating ethics into technical content through the use of well-formulated questions and discussion. • This approach reinforces the idea that ethics is an integral part of STEM. It also makes including additional content less burdensome.

18. Question 1 • What materials and resources will be needed to construct, operate, and maintain this technology? • Materials • Durability • Cost • Accessibility • Sustainability/Disposability • Resources • Energy required to construct • Energy required to operate

19. Question 2 • Who would use this technology? • Does the choice of materials affect cost which in turn affects who could use the technology? • Who would use the technology and how would they be impacted physically, emotionally, and financially?

20. Question 3 • Besides the people using the technology, who else might be affected by it? • Will people’s jobs change in virtue of the technology? Positively? Negatively? • What about those living around the factories responsible for producing the technology? Will they be impacted? If so, how?

21. Question 4 • What else might be affected? • How will the technology impact the inanimate world? The urban environment? • Animals around us?