Developing student capacities to make ethical decisions

Text, 'ethics'
Photo 2011 by Carol Van Hook. Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike Licence http://bit.ly

Teaching ethical decision-making is a challenge in many programs. This is despite its importance for both general and professional degrees. The University of Sydney graduate quality,  An integrated professional, ethical and personal identity, has the aim of building integrity, confidence and personal resilience as well as the capacity to manage challenge and uncertainty, qualities we would want our graduates to have. Across the University there are many approaches to teaching ethics, including class studies and scenarios.

Sydney Teaching Colloquium

The final session at the Sydney Teaching Colloquium,  from 3-4pm on Thursday 27 October, will introduce one of these approaches. It  will provide the opportunity to make connections with others interested in teaching ethics. Paul McGreevy and Vicky Tzioumis from the Faculty of Veterinary Science will discuss how to use the tool ‘Chatterbox’. Chatterbox was developed as part of a national Office of Learning and Teaching funded project.

Chatterbox is an online version of the ‘Human Continuum’, an established cooperative/cognitive learning strategy.  Students respond to an ethical question by identifying and committing to a position along a virtual continuum, listening to alternative positions and reconsidering their view in response. This workshop will use the virtual continuum with an example from a health profession but it can be used around an issue in any discipline.

The teaching ethics with Chatterbox workshop will form part of the ‘Developing Graduate Qualities in Health Professionals’ session at the Colloquium.

Register for Developing Graduate Qualities in Health Professionals

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