The Online Ethics Center for Engineering & Science - Department of ...

Undergraduate Education in Practical Ethicsdeciding when and whom to trust as they become independent adults.They are often most interested, for example, in what they can expect indealings with health care practitioners or teachers. Such discussionsshould deal with the responsibilities of students or patients (e.g., thepatient's responsibility to provide the practitioner with complete andaccurate information) as well as their rights.C.1 Active Learning about ProfessionalResponsibility by First and Second Year StudentsRather than simply studying a code, a more engaging active learningapproach begins with discussion of brief open-ended (what-shall-we-do?)problem situations that might arise in the profession in question. Duringthe class session, have the students discuss how they might address theproblem. For follow-up homework, assign the students to see what theprovisions of the relevant professional society's code of ethics wouldhave to say about the situation or the responses they have proposed. It isoften a good idea to assign students to work in groups on this question, orto respond to one another's responses.Those teaching students in engineering and the applied sciences casesmay want to make use of a collection of open-ended discussion cases(cases that ask what should be done). These open-ended cases are basedon other closed-ended cases (cases that ask only how given actionsshould be judged). . These open-ended cases are based on other closedendedcases (cases that ask only how given actions should be judged).Those closed-ended judgment cases were constructed by the NationalSociety of Professional Engineers (NSPE). The NSPE Board of EthicalReview (BER) applied the then current version of the NSPE Code ofEthics to the case to judge the ethical acceptability of the actions of theengineer(s) in the case. Each discussion case on the OEC Web site has alink to the corresponding NSPE BER case and the BER's judgment on it.Beginning with cases that students must grapple with and teachingprinciples in relation to those cases is an essential feature of active orexperiential learning. Students find this approach more interesting thantrying to read the code or even a code and a judgment that applies itwithout first trying to cope with the kinds of situations that the codeseeks to address. It helps them understand:●●●Why codes of ethics mention only certain ethically significantactions, and not all the moral rules that would apply to theirmember's actions (The codes focus on matters related to theresponsibilities and temptations specific to a their profession.)That the ethical considerations they themselves bring forward arenot always the same as those that the professional societiesconsider, but may nonetheless be valid.That professional societies are concerned not only withresponsibility for the public good, but with promoting cooperationand goodwill among members of their profession.These discoveries help students not only understand codes, but toevaluate whether and when the provisions within a code of ethics havehttp://onlineethics.org/edu/cwethed.html (4 of 8)10/25/2005 9:06:13 AM