Articulate differences between distinct ethical questions, claims, and theories.
Articulate relationships between ethical concepts, questions, claims, and theories.
Recognize the reasoning and motivation behind ethical claims or theories.
Recognize the reasons or motives behind their own values, principles, or choices.
Apply a general ethical theory to a particular issue or case.
Select a strategy below to see more details.
Think-Pair-Share: Pose a question or questions to students. First, have students come up with answers on their own. Have them record their own responses. Second, have students get together in small groups (2-4 students each) and discuss their answers. Finally, individual students share their answers with the class, using their small group discussion as input to develop their own response.
Well-suited for:
Recognizing the reasoning and motivations behind an ethical claim or theory.
Recognizing the reasoning and motivations behind their own personal values, principles, virtues, or choices.
Strengths
Builds students’ confidence. By first presenting their answers to a small group of peers, and then getting feedback and advice from those peers, students come to feel more comfortable presenting their own thinking in a larger class setting.
Allows students to practice giving and receiving feedback in a low-stakes setting. Having productive discussions about complex or charged issues (as ethical issues often are) requires a number of learned skills, including the ability to receive and give feedback directed at a view (as opposed to at a person). This format allows students to practice that ability at a small scale, before applying it to the larger scale of a full class discussion.
Allows students to take charge of the discussion. While you set the parameters of the discussion with your question, the substantive content of the discussion is provided by students. This can allow students to have a more direct, personal connection to the material and a more direct stake in the discussion.
Great for discussions early in the term. The Think-Pair-Share format has an innate social element built into it, so organizing discussion this way can help students get to know one another. Vary who students are paired with to help students become familiar with all their discussion partners. Building a sense of section-wide familiarity early on in the term will help students feel comfortable collaboratively tackling (sometimes quite difficult) ethical topics throughout the term.
Panels: Ahead of section, divide students into small groups and assign each group a particular ethical theory or question. Ask each group to prepare a brief presentation explaining their assigned theory or answering their assigned question. In section, ask each group to present and then field questions on the presented material from the other students.
Well-suited for:
Articulating differences between distinct ethical questions, claims, and theories.
Recognizing the reasoning and motivation behind ethical claims or theories.
Strengths
Builds students’ confidence. Students in each group develop a level of expertise (at least relative to other students) on their assigned question or theory. The panel format then gives them an opportunity to contribute in section, speaking from a position of (relative) confidence. This is a good way to get students more comfortable with publicly sharing views and ideas on complex ethical topics.
Encourages active listening to peers. In order to ask effective questions, students must pay close attention to other students’ presentations (on topics they did not prepare). This can help students get into the habit of listening to one another in discussion and relying on their peers as sources of knowledge (as opposed to solely relying on you, the course head or some other pre-established authority).
Great for reviewing material at the end of a course segment. The panel format work great for surveying and discussing a varied range of ethical topics all at once. By assigning specific theories/questions to groups, no one student will be tasked with becoming an expert on some overwhelmingly wide range of ethical topics. Meanwhile, the panel format provides an inherent structure to discussion so that multiple topics can be organically covered within one discussion section.
Reading Presentations: Ahead of section, assign one or more students explain a significant section or passage from a recent reading. Ask presenting students to explain any relevant context from the reading needed to understand the section or passage. Invite students who are not presenting to ask presenters follow-up questions.
Well-suited for:
Articulating differences between distinct ethical questions, claims, and theories.
Recognizing the reasoning and motivation behind ethical claims or theories.
Strengths
Develops presentation skills. By asking students to present material to their peers, students are pushed to not only analyze the material for their own understanding but break it down in such a way that others can also understand. Moreover, thinking through how to present analysis clearly to others pushes students to be especially precise in their analytic work.
Puts students in charge of their own learning. Tasking a student (or students) with presenting some part of the day’s materials allows students to share in the experience of leading and directing section. This puts students’ in a position of (limited) academic expertise, allowing them to develop confidence in their analytic abilities without having to take on the full stress of teaching a class or section.
Great for reviewing weekly course materials or reading assignments throughout a term. Regular reading presentations throughout the term can help reinforce reading expectations, and ensures that students will be forced to think deeply about at least one part of the course materials or readings.