Asee peer logo

Changing Engineering Ethics Education: Understanding Ill-structured Problems through Argument Visualization in Collaborative Learning

Download Paper |

Conference

2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

San Antonio, Texas

Publication Date

June 10, 2012

Start Date

June 10, 2012

End Date

June 13, 2012

ISSN

2153-5965

Conference Session

Approaches to Teaching Ethics

Tagged Division

Engineering Ethics

Page Count

13

Page Numbers

25.300.1 - 25.300.13

DOI

10.18260/1-2--21058

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/21058

Download Count

627

Paper Authors

biography

Michael H.G. Hoffmann Georgia Institute as Technology

visit author page

Michael H.G. Hoffmann's research focuses on the question of how creativity, cognitive change, and learning can be stimulated by constructing diagrammatic representations, and by experimenting with those representations. This idea has first been developed by Charles S. Peirce in his concept of "diagrammatic reasoning." Since 2004, he developed "Logical Argument Mapping (LAM)," a method and diagrammatic system of representation that is supposed to stimulate critical thinking. LAM has been implemented in the interactive and web-based software AGORA-net: Participate - Deliberate!
AGORA-net is on online world in which everyone can construct arguments or participate in debates. Its development is funded by the U.S. Department of Education. Most recently he works on collaborative and problem-based learning environments for ethics and for science education in which AGORA-net is used as a tool to focus and guide autonomous collaboration among small groups of students.

visit author page

biography

Jason Borenstein Georgia Institute of Technology Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-1505-4349

visit author page

Jason Borenstein, Ph.D., is the Director of Graduate Research Ethics programs at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is also an Assistant Editor of Science and Engineering Ethics and Co-editor of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s Ethics and Information Technology section. His research interests include engineering ethics, robot ethics, research ethics, and ethics assessment. His work has appeared in various journals including Science and Engineering Ethics, AI & Society, Communications of the ACM, the Journal of Academic Ethics, Ethics and Information Technology, IEEE Technology & Society, and Accountability in Research.

visit author page

Download Paper |

Abstract

Changing Engineering Ethics Education: Understanding Ill-Structured Problems Through Argument Visualization In Collaborative LearningAs was recognized during the National Academy of Engineering’s Ethics Education andScientific and Engineering Research workshop, ethics education should foster the ability toanalyze complex decision situations and ill-structured problems. This presentation aims tobuild on the NAE’s insights and reports about an innovative teaching approach that has twomain features: first, it places the emphasis on deliberation and on self-directed, problem-based learning in small groups of students; and second, it focuses on understanding ill-structured problems. The first innovation is motivated by an abundance of scholarly researchthat supports the value of deliberative learning practices. The second results from a critiqueof the traditional case-study approach in engineering ethics. A key problem with standardcases is that they are usually described in such a fashion that renders the ethical problem asbeing too obvious and simplistic. Any description that already “frames” a case in this kind ofway tends to trivialize the ethical challenge. The practitioner, by contrast, will mostly faceproblems that are ill-structured and for which it is not even clear if they include a real ethicalchallenge.In the collaborative learning environment described here, groups of students use interactiveand web-based argument visualization software called “AGORA: Participate – Deliberate!”.The function of the software is to structure communication and problem solving in smallgroups. The software guides students step by step through a process of argument mapping.Students are confronted with the task of identifying possible stakeholder positions andreconstructing their legitimacy by constructing justifications for these positions in the form ofgraphically represented logical argument maps. The argument maps are presented in class sothat the stakeholder positions and their respective justifications become visible and can bebrought into a reasoned dialogue and deliberative process. Argument mapping in engineeringethics courses provides an exciting opportunity for students to collaborate in teams and todevelop critical thinking and argumentation skills.The AGORA project is funded through a FIPSE grant from the US Department of Educationand a complementary grant by the Russian Ministry of Education and Science. It involves acollaboration between institution XXX and institution XXX.

Hoffmann, M. H., & Borenstein, J. (2012, June), Changing Engineering Ethics Education: Understanding Ill-structured Problems through Argument Visualization in Collaborative Learning Paper presented at 2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, San Antonio, Texas. 10.18260/1-2--21058

ASEE holds the copyright on this document. It may be read by the public free of charge. Authors may archive their work on personal websites or in institutional repositories with the following citation: © 2012 American Society for Engineering Education. Other scholars may excerpt or quote from these materials with the same citation. When excerpting or quoting from Conference Proceedings, authors should, in addition to noting the ASEE copyright, list all the original authors and their institutions and name the host city of the conference. - Last updated April 1, 2015