Abstract

During fall 2018 and fall 2019, we designed a highly interactive 4-class period ethics and teamwork minimodule and embedded it in an upper-level design course in Electrical & Computer Engineering at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). In the first two class periods, we covered ethical principles, moral theories, and the pillars of morality: honesty, fairness, and reciprocity. In class, students watched segments of video lectures by Harvard’s Michael Sandel and Emory University’s Frans De Waal. Small group discussions followed the video lectures. Student teams led teamwork demonstrations via in-class games during the last two class periods. Strong student engagement was observed.Previously, in the fall of 2016 and spring of 2017, we instigated prosocial software design and development in the UAB Computer Science capstone course, which requires a team project. Three out of seven student teams developed prosocial app concepts. Additionally, from 2019 to 2021 we led the UAB Ethics in Action: Art or App Design Challenge, which encourages college students nationwide to develop prosocial app concepts or artworks for class projects. In the fall of 2021, students at three different institutions submitted award-winning entries. We urge faculty leadership to encourage a prosocial approach to software design. Research on developing moral reasoning algorithms is needed.The authors’ interdisciplinary research on detecting cyberbullying and nastiness in social media and their history of collaboration in university outreach projects and Computer Science and Engineering education and research are also described.