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NAF Professional Ethics

Lesson 3 An Ethical Decision-Making

Framework

Teacher Resources

Resource Description

Teacher Resource 3.1 Presentation and Notes: An Ethical Decision-Making Framework (includes separate PowerPoint file)

Teacher Resource 3.2 Assessment Criteria: High School Ethics Case Study

Teacher Resource 3.3 Guide: Socratic Seminar

Teacher Resource 3.4 Chart: In-Discussion Assessment

Teacher Resource 3.5 Prompts: Learning Objective Reflection (separate PowerPoint slide)

Teacher Resource 3.6 Guide: Teaching Reflection

Teacher Resource 3.7 Key Vocabulary: An Ethical Decision-Making Framework

Teacher Resource 3.8 Bibliography: An Ethical Decision-Making Framework

Copyright © 2016 NAF. All rights reserved.

NAF Professional EthicsLesson 3 An Ethical Decision-Making Framework

Teacher Resource 3.1

Presentation Notes: An Ethical Decision-Making Framework

Before you show this presentation, use the text accompanying each slide to develop presentation notes. Writing the notes yourself enables you to approach the subject matter in a way that is comfortable to you and engaging for your students. Make this presentation as interactive as possible by stopping frequently to ask questions and encourage class discussion.

By now, you have some idea of what it means to behave ethically as a person and as a professional. But how do you know what the right or ethical thing to do in a particular situation is? We are going to look at an approach to decision making that will help you recognize the ethical choice.

Presentation notes



First, figure out what the problem really is. That may sound silly, but sometimes we feel uneasy about a situation and we aren’t sure why. Maybe we think we are supposed to feel a certain way, but we don’t. Or we aren’t thinking the “right” way—the way other people seem to think about this issue.

You also have to think about the other people involved in the situation—not just yourself. For example, some smokers say “I’m not hurting anybody else. It’s my body and I can choose to smoke if I want to.” But what if that person is a parent with a baby at home? Now the person is exposing the baby to cigarette smoke, which can damage the baby’s health.

Another consideration is short- and long-term effects of your decision. Sometimes people can be less, or more, affected by your decision depending on how far into the future we look.

It’s also important to consider if laws are being broken. Remember that an ethical decision is not necessarily a lawful one. The civil rights movement and other social justice movements have encouraged people to deliberately break laws that were unjust, such as laws separating Caucasian and African-American people on a bus. But if a good law is being broken, that adds another factor to your decision. Remember, too, that it can be tempting to claim a rule is unfair when you don’t like it, but if you think carefully, you can distinguish between what is really unfair and what is just something you dislike.

Presentation notes



Presentation notes



It can be easy to establish the facts of a situation. If you are babysitting your little brother and find him in the bathroom, flushing your cell phone down the toilet, the facts are clear. But what if he’s been playing outside and comes in with a bloody nose because he had a fight with another kid in the neighborhood? You will need to get the facts before you punish him or go yell at the neighbor kid.

One of the big challenges is figuring out where the facts stop and opinion begins. Your brother might tell you that the other kid started the fight, that he was “being mean” or that he “said something” and your brother had to retaliate. But how much of that is fact and how much is your brother’s opinion? If you weren’t there, it can be hard to tell.

That doesn’t mean your brother is a liar. All of us have our own unique viewpoint on what happened, and we tend to present things in the way that makes the most sense to us or the way that makes us look best. That’s human nature.

While this may not seem logical, sometimes certain facts or opinions have a bigger influence than others. If you know the neighbor kid is a bully, you may be more inclined to believe your brother’s side of the story. On the other hand, if you know the neighbor kid is sad because his dog just died, you might be more inclined to tell your brother to give the kid a break.

Presentation notes



Opinions matter to us personally, but they don’t necessarily have a bearing on the ethical way to resolve a situation. Opinions are not always supported by facts. Sometimes opinions are plain old incorrect. This can be hard to swallow: sure, you are entitled to your opinion, but that doesn’t mean you’re right or that your opinion should carry any weight when making an ethical decision.

Strongly held opinions can make it impossible to see other perspectives. They can make us intolerant and judgmental. They can even make us blind to the truth of the matter.

Some facts or opinions matter more than others. An expert, firsthand witness account carries more weight than a view of the situation from someone who has a stake in the dilemma or who was nearby.

Presentation notes



Take a few minutes now to complete the chart.

Presentation notes



At times, we may feel like a problem has only one solution: “He hit my baby brother, so I’m going to beat him up!” When we are under stress, it can be difficult for our brains to think of a variety of different solutions. Many ethical dilemmas are inherently stressful, so it is important to stop and take the time to think of many possible options, or at least to evaluate the options you do have.

Using the questions listed above, it is easy to see that beating up the neighbor kid, while it might be tempting, would not be the ethical choice. It would not do much good and might do a lot of damage, particularly if the neighbor kid has relatives that would then want to beat you up. It would not be a respectful or fair choice or good for the community as a whole.

On the other hand, arranging a conversation with you and your brother and the neighbor kid and a relative of the neighbor kid would be much more respectful and fair, and better for the community.

Presentation notes



Presentation notes



Now you’ve come up with multiple options, but how do you know which is the best—or most ethical—one to choose? You can use this simple test to evaluate your choices.

1. Reversibility: How would I feel if the situation were reversed? If someone thought your baby brother beat up their baby brother, wouldn’t you rather they asked you for an explanation than just chased after your baby brother and hit him?

2. Publicity: Is this a choice you want your name on? Would you want to be interviewed on TV about it? Would you post it on your Facebook page, your Twitter feed, your Instagram account? If not, maybe it’s not a good decision.

3. Harm: Does it do less damage than other options? Sometimes, unfortunately, there are no “good” options. In this case, you have to choose the “least bad” one: the one that does the least amount of harm to the smallest number of people. The concept of harm can be difficult to pin down. Is harm objective or subjective? Is there a difference between psychological and physical harm? Is harm the same thing as offense?

Presentation notes



Write down the “test results” in your notebook and be prepared to discuss them with the class.

Presentation notes



Even the best decision can fail if it isn’t implemented properly. Imagine you make the “ethical” choice to talk to the kid who beat up your brother, rather than attacking him. If you start the conversation by insulting the kid and calling him names, you really aren’t making a good choice, even if you followed a good decision-making process.

You need to think carefully about how to follow through on your decisions. Then, once the decision has been implemented, you need to analyze how it turned out—and what you learned from the situation.

You won’t be able to complete this last step for your ethical dilemma, since it’s not a real situation. But take some time now to discuss this process with your class. How is it similar to or different from what you have done in the past when facing a big decision?

Presentation notes




Assessment Criteria: High School Ethics Case StudyStudent Name:______________________________________________________________

Date:_______________________________________________________________________

Using the following criteria, assess whether the student met each one.

Met Partially Met

Didn’t Meet

The case study thoroughly explores each of the five steps of the decision-making framework. □ □ □The case study correctly identifies facts, opinions, and implications of the ethical dilemma. □ □ □The case study realistically describes potential effects or reactions to the dilemma. □ □ □The case study evaluates multiple potential solutions before selecting one. □ □ □The completed assignment is neat and uses proper spelling and grammar. □ □ □

Additional Comments:

_____________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________




Guide: Socratic Seminar

What Is a Socratic Seminar?A Socratic seminar is a form of classroom discussion based on the teaching methods of Socrates. Socrates engaged his students by responding to questions with questions, rather than answers, thus teaching them to think for themselves.

In a Socratic seminar, students are asked to read a piece of text and develop questions about it. They then discuss those questions and other questions posed by the teacher. The discussion is held by seating students in a circle. Students are expected to talk to each other, not to the teacher. They should respond to each other respectfully and to listen carefully without interrupting.

The Socratic seminar can be difficult to implement with an entire class at once, unless your class size is quite small (usually 12–15 students). The fishbowl format allows large classes to implement the Socratic seminar. In a fishbowl format, one group of students forms a small circle and discusses with each other. The rest of the students form a second circle around the group that is discussing. The students in the outside circle listen and make notes, preparing for their turn to speak. The inner circle students have a set amount of time to discuss; then the students trade places. When both groups have spoken, you can finish with a brief whole-class discussion.

Ideally, the teacher’s job is to get out of the way and let students talk. The teacher should observe the discussion closely and assess students on their communication skills, their knowledge of the topic, and the appropriateness of their behavior. The teacher should keep the conversation flowing by contributing a discussion question or suggesting that students change to a different question if the conversation has lagged. But the key to a Socratic seminar is to allow students to discover answers rather than have them provided, so the teacher should make an effort not to summarize, answer questions, or solve the problems students raise in the conversation.



AssessmentWhile students are talking, the teacher can assess student participation and knowledge of subject matter. Teacher Resource 3.4, Chart: In-Discussion Assessment, offers a format for taking notes during the discussion.

The Process for This Activity1. Students review Student Resource 3.5, Guide: Socratic Seminar. This will familiarize them with the

process of the discussion.

2. Students read Student Resource 3.7, Case Studies: Ethical Dilemmas in Career Fields.

3. As they read, students develop discussion questions based on the reading, using the prompts provided in Student Resource 3.6, Reference: Discussion Starters.

4. Students participate in the discussion using the questions they have thought of and the discussion questions provided for them by the teacher, as well as questions that arise spontaneously during the course of the discussion.

5. During the discussion, the teacher assesses students on a credit/no-credit basis using Teacher Resource 3.4, Chart: In-Discussion Assessment.

General Questions to Use in a Socratic Seminar Who has something they really want to say about this topic?

Who has a different perspective?

Who has not yet had a chance to speak?

Can you clarify what you mean by that?

How does that relate to what (another student) said?

Is there something in the reading that was unclear to you?

Has anyone changed his or her mind?

Specific Questions for This Lesson How would you apply the ethical decision-making framework to this dilemma?

Do you think there are similar ethical dilemmas in other career fields? Why or why not?

Provocative Statements The following statements can be used to get students talking:

Your personal ethical code is more important than a professional ethical code.

As long as you are doing what your boss tells you to do, you are behaving ethically.

Unlike personal ethics, professional ethics are very clear and definite.




Chart: In-Discussion AssessmentThe chart on the next page can be helpful for tracking your assessment of students during the discussion. You can fill in each box with a score of 1–4, with 4 representing exemplary work and 1 representing poor work, or you can use some other assessment system that works for you (check, check plus, and check minus; scale of 1–10; etc.). You can complete this chart during the discussion.



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Guide: Teaching ReflectionThis guide provides ideas for improving students’ ability to reflect on their learning. It includes specific suggestions for helping students reflect on meeting the learning objectives of a lesson. Students participating in NAFTrack Certification will benefit from practicing reflective writing, since they will respond to reflection prompts as part of the NAFTrack Certification process.

All thinking requires some type of reflection in order for learning to take place. Reflection is a cluster of skills that involves observing, questioning, and putting ideas and experiences together to give a fresh meaning to them all. The reflection activities throughout this course bring students a sense of ownership of what they have learned and a better understanding of themselves and their abilities.

Build your students’ reflection skills by starting with easier reflection questions that lead to more complex ones. The list below, based on Bloom’s Taxonomy, helps students break down what they need to think about so that they gain confidence and strengthen their metacognition. Because each question takes the previous answer a step further, students can come up with answers to each question and eventually wind up with everything they need to work with to craft an answer for the highest-level reflection questions.

Learning Levels (From Lower to Higher Order) Examples of Reflection Questions

Remembering (retrieving, recognizing, recalling) What can I remember? What did I do?

Understanding (constructing meaning) What do I think it means? What conclusions did I come to? What are my takeaways? What did I get out of it?

Applying (extending learning to a new setting) How could I use this [knowledge, experience] again? In what new way could this be valuable?

Analyzing (breaking material apart, seeing how the parts fit together and what the overall purpose is)

What are the different parts of this [experiment, assignment, project, experience]? As a whole, what is the purpose/main idea?

Evaluating What has this [project, assignment, experience, experiment] taught me about myself—my strengths, my challenges? What am I proud of? What could I do better next time? What are my contributions? I used to think…but now I think….

Creating Is there another, better way to put the pieces of this [project, assignment, experience, experiment] together? What could I [create, write, plan] next?

Another source of ideas for teaching reflection: http://www.visiblethinkingpz.org/

Follow these tips to guide students in responding to reflection questions on learning objectives:


http://www.visiblethinkingpz.org/


Read the reflection question aloud to the class and have students rephrase the question using their own words.

Explain that they should use the reflection question to describe what they have learned during the lesson as it relates to the learning objective.

Review the meaning of the learning objective before students get started on their reflections.

Refer to the examples below, which represent good responses to these types of reflection questions.

ExampleBelow is an example learning objective with example student reflection prompts and responses. Although students only encounter the actual NAFTrack Certification prompts once they are on the NAFTrack Certification assessment platform, examples like these give students a sense of the type of reflection they will be asked to engage in. You can copy and paste these examples into a Word document for students to review and discuss as a class. You can add more prompts for students to answer, or customize this content to best suit your students and your goals for them.

Learning objective Identify major public health issues and explain why they are important

Prompts and responsesThink of the assignments that you completed during this lesson. Choose one to use as your work sample as you answer the questions below.

Explain how completing this work sample helped you to meet this learning objective. Describe the ideas and skills that you used.

I chose the informational profile that I wrote as my work sample. It helped me meet this learning objective because it is about a major public health issue: HIV. My profile explains that HIV affects millions of people around the world. HIV is also a big problem because it is so difficult to treat. To write my profile, I learned about many ideas that were new to me. I read about what researchers think causes HIV, how it affects the body, and what cures they are working on. The skills I used are writing and researching. I had to practice putting the articles I read into my own words so that I wouldn’t plagiarize. Being able to organize information is another skill I used.

Describe what you could improve about your work sample.

I tried really hard to make my profile organized, but now I see ways I could have laid information out to make it easier to read. I don’t think I wrote enough about how HIV is transmitted from one person to another. It would have been good to include my favorite websites so people could learn more if they want to.

Promoting Reflection in the ClassroomYou can also use the following sample questions to promote a culture of reflection in your classroom—during class and small-group oral reflections, during PowerPoint presentations, and when students are having a discussion and you want to draw them out more.

Can you discuss that more?

Why do you think that happens?

What evidence do you have to support that?

Do you see a connection between this and _________?

Does this remind you of anything else?

How else could you approach that?



How could you do that?




Key Vocabulary: An Ethical Decision-Making Framework

Term Definition

harm One of the tests of ethical decision-making: is this the option that does the least amount of harm?

publicity One of the tests of ethical decision-making: would you stand by your decision if it was announced to the world?

quandary A state of perplexity or uncertainty over what to do in a difficult situation.

reversibility One of the tests of ethical decision-making: how would you feel if you were the one affected by the decision?

stakeholder A person who is concerned or affected by something, such as a particular situation or ethical dilemma.




Bibliography: An Ethical Decision-Making FrameworkThe following sources were used in the preparation of this lesson and may be useful for your reference or as classroom resources. We check and update the URLs annually to ensure that they continue to be useful.

Online“A Framework for Thinking Ethically.” Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, Santa Clara University, http://www.scu.edu/ethics/practicing/decision/framework.html (accessed February 10, 2016).

“Professional Ethics Background Material.” Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions, Illinois Institute of Technology, http://ethics.iit.edu/eac/post_workshop/HP210_Background.pdf (accessed February 10, 2016).


http://ethics.iit.edu/eac/post_workshop/HP210_Background.pdf

http://www.scu.edu/ethics/practicing/decision/framework.html

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