Using Student Engagement to Relocate Ethics to the Core of the Engineering Curriculum

Science and Engineering Ethics 25 (6):1-18 (2013)
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Abstract

One of the core problems with engineering ethics education is perceptual. Although ethics is meant to be a central component of today’s engineering curriculum, it is often perceived as a marginal requirement that must be fulfilled. In addition, there is a mismatch between faculty and student perceptions of ethics. While faculty aim to communicate the nuances and complexity of engineering ethics, students perceive ethics as laws, rules, and codes that must be memorized. This paper provides some historical context to better understand these perceptual differences, and suggests that curriculum constraints are important contributing factors. Drawing on the growing scholarship of student engagement approaches to pedagogy, the paper explores how students can be empowered to effect change in the broader engineering curriculum through engineering ethics. The paper describes a student engagement approach to pedagogy that includes students as active participants in curriculum design—a role that enables them to critically reflect about why ethics is a requirement. Including students in the process of curriculum design leads students to reframe ethics as an integrative tool with the capacity to bring together different engineering departments and build bridges to non-engineering fields. This paper argues that students can and should play an active and important role in relocating ethics from the periphery to the core of the engineering curriculum

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References found in this work

Engineering Practice and Engineering Ethics.Ronald Kline & William T. Lynch - 2000 - Science, Technology, and Human Values 25 (2):195-225.
Moral pedagogy and practical ethics.Chuck Huff & William Frey - 2005 - Science and Engineering Ethics 11 (3):389-408.
Taking Emotion Seriously: Meeting Students Where They Are.Mary E. Sunderland - 2014 - Science and Engineering Ethics 20 (1):183-195.
Engineering ethics, individuals, and organizations.Michael Davis - 2006 - Science and Engineering Ethics 12 (2):223-231.

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