“This Applies to the Real World”: Student Perspectives on Integrating Ethics into a Computer Science Assignment

In this episode I unpack Jarzemsky, Paup, and Fiesler’s (2023) publication titled “‘This Applies to the Real World’: Student Perspectives on Integrating Ethics into a Computer Science Assignment,” which explores student perspectives on an undergraduate ethics assignment in a CS class.

  • Recently there's been a lot of

    discussion about ethics in relation to

    computer science and technology in

    general so we look at a lot of companies

    and what they're doing in terms of

    practices we see a lot of them engaging

    in practices that might harm their users

    or might sell their information as data

    in ways that are not known to the users

    or maybe engage in practices that might

    harm groups or individuals through

    censorship or whatever this has raised a

    lot of questions within the field of

    Computer Science Education about well

    when and where should we discuss ethics

    or should we at all so for example in

    episode 177 titled racial Justice amidst

    the dangers of computing creep colon a

    dialogue the authors talk about how

    although there might be some ethics put

    into place or encouraged through

    computer science programs so it doesn't

    necessarily mean that the people who

    take those classes are going to follow

    them so for example speed limits are

    required by law for you to adhere to

    them but it does not mean that people

    are going severely over the speed limits

    and getting arrested for it or getting

    tickets same thing applies for ethics in

    computer science education just because

    we teach an ethics class it does not

    mean that people are are going to follow

    them and are not going to instead follow

    what is best for the shareholders at

    their corporations or companies but if

    you think that ethics should be taught

    when should it be taught how should it

    be taught and what other perspectives of

    the students who take those classes we

    actually explore this question in

    today's paper that I'm going to unpack

    which is titled this applies to the real

    world colon student perspectives on

    integrating ethics into a computer

    science assignment this is written by

    Julie jarzaminski Joshua palp and Casey

    feissler apologies if I mispronounced

    any names here's the abstract for this

    paper quote there is a growing movement

    in undergraduate computer science CS

    programs to embed ethics across CS

    classes rather than relying solely on

    Standalone ethics courses one strategy

    is creating assignments that encourage

    students to reflect on ethical issues

    inherent to the code they write building

    off prior work that has surveyed

    students after doing such assignments in

    class we conducted focus groups with

    students who reviewed a new introductory

    ethics-based CS assignment in this

    experience report we present a case

    study describing a process of describing

    an ethics-based assignment and posing

    the assignment to students for feedback

    participants in our focus groups not

    only shared feedback on the assignment

    but also on the integration of Ethics

    into coding assignments in general

    revealing the benefits and challenges of

    this work from a student perspective we

    also generated novel ethics oriented

    assignment Concepts alongside students

    driving from Tech controversies that

    participants felt most affected by we

    created a bank of ideas as a starting

    point for further curriculum development

    end quote so this study was with

    undergraduate computer science Majors

    we're going to talk about this in

    relation to K-12 Computer Science

    Education but this is applicable in

    higher education as well how do I know

    that well I've taught every single grade

    kindergarten through doctoral student in

    a variety of contexts like music

    education and computer science education

    context so I have a wide range of

    experience over a couple of decades now

    all right and the introduction for the

    paper the authors talk about how there

    are many different approaches to

    satisfying ethics requirements for

    degrees in computer science some degrees

    might have a standalone ethics computer

    science course other degree programs

    will have a broader ethics course that

    might be specific to technology as a

    domain or just ethics in general and

    then some will take an approach of

    embedding ethics like throughout

    different assignments and different

    courses throughout the entire degree

    program the same thing can apply through

    K-12 education you might have a

    standalone unit that is specific to

    ethics in computer science and computer

    science education or you might have like

    a class that is just related to Ethics

    in general or maybe digital citizenship

    as well or maybe even embed these ideas

    like throughout the course or semester

    or units Etc now a lot of these ethics

    classes kind of have a top-down approach

    where it is like the instructor who is

    instilling some form of Ethics onto the

    students but what are the student

    perspectives on these classes and the

    assignments and whatnot so the authors

    unpack this a little bit in this paper

    the second section of this paper is

    titled creating the assignment the

    authors note that many undergraduate

    classes will have students work on an

    assignment like detecting hate speech

    and so while the author is like admit

    that this is a worthy assignment to go

    through it can cause harm for some

    people who are directly impacted by that

    speech think of this from like a SEL or

    social emotional learning perspective

    which I'll include a link to that in the

    show notes for some other podcast

    episodes that specifically unpack what

    is sel in relation to Computer Science

    Education and you can find those at

    jaredelary.com and just click on the

    podcast tab you'll also find a bunch of

    gaming and drumming and more Computer

    Science Education content on there

    there's literally thousands of hours

    worth of content on my website available

    for free so check it out and if you

    enjoy that content maybe share it with

    somebody else helps more people out

    anyways back to the assignment so

    instead of doing a hate speech

    assignment where it's like a minoritized

    group who's being attacked by another

    group the authors decided to create an

    assignment that kind of remove some of

    that potential for harm so here's the

    assignment prompt quote catter is a

    social media platform built by and for

    cats the cats platform has recently been

    getting spammed by dogs so they have

    decided to remove all mentions of dogs

    from their platform entirely however

    cats are not great at programming they

    need your help in removing all of the

    dog content from their platform end

    quote now this reminds me of episode 7 D

    which is titled eliminating gender bias

    and computer science education materials

    which kind of talks about how you might

    be able to eliminate some of the biases

    that are in instructional materials by

    not using gendered objects so if you

    want to learn more about this particular

    idea check out that episode again that's

    episode 70 and you can find it at

    jiridolary.com and you can find that in

    the show notes for this episode so at

    the start of this assignment begins with

    the students kind of exploring how to

    find whether or not the word dog is

    found within text and then removing

    posts that have that kind of reference

    but the next part of the assignment is

    to explore different Lima so like to

    think of dogs and dog and

    d-o-g-g-o.o or d-a-w-g dog Etc which are

    like different variations of the word

    dog so that dives a little bit deeper

    but then they actually explore well what

    about other references like negative

    comments about cats or even references

    to dogs without actually using the word

    dog so in this portion of the assignment

    they use the nltk sentiment analyzer

    which would look at like intent rather

    than just specific keywords so that's

    kind of like the a basic structure of

    the assignment itself and there's some

    reflection afterwards and things like

    that now the next section of this paper

    is titled the evaluation methods so in

    this section they talk about how they

    had 90-minute focus groups for three to

    five participants each and they would

    kind of talk about this assignment and

    so from page two of the PDF this is what

    the tasks were that they had to complete

    quote one pre-questionire about content

    moderation two review of coding portion

    of assignment three group discussion and

    individual surveys on coding portion 3A

    reactions to the assignment 3B how they

    would complete it and 3C any changes

    they would suggest Four review of

    reflection portion five group discussion

    and individual surveys on reflection

    portion six brainstorm new assignment

    ideas centered around ethical dilemmas

    and 6B discuss how these controversies

    tie in with cs topics and quote in the

    end they end up with 16 individual

    participants and the group sizes were

    two to five for this portion of the

    study after the group interviews they

    went into the Thematic analysis so the

    transcribe the discussions and then we

    go through it and kind of assign a code

    that kind of like was an abstraction or

    a summary of what was stated in each one

    of the sentences and when you do that

    kind of code you might have multiple

    codes and it's created a list of themes

    that they explored and then they kind of

    explored well how does this compare

    across like the different participants

    for each one of these themes Etc all

    right so section four is on the findings

    so the first subsection is the strengths

    of the assignment one of the key

    findings in this particular section it

    talks about how the students appreciated

    the pretend scenario with the cats and

    the dogs and how this eased them into a

    discussion on content moderation with

    humans the participants thought this

    brought in real world application of

    computer science Concepts practices Etc

    that were relevant to the students

    taking this class which is really

    important I mean if we think about it a

    lot of the assignments that we might

    engage in in computer science class

    might be relevant to the domain of

    computer science but if it's not

    relevant to the students taking it it

    might go in one year and then out the

    other year I mean I had so many projects

    in other classes where when I engaged in

    them it was like relevant to that domain

    and interesting in a way but like I

    wasn't going to use it in the real world

    so down the road I've completely

    forgotten what I learned which if you

    want to get a deeper dive into that

    understanding which is often described

    as situated language or situated

    learning check out the podcast episode

    titled situated language and learning

    with Brian Brown this is episode 53.

    it's a fantastic episode that unpacks

    this concept of situated learning and

    how you might use it in classroom

    context alright so section 4.2 is on

    suggestions for improving the assignment

    now I'm really glad that the authors

    actually did this where they were asking

    people hey how could we improve this

    assignment it's fantastic there's

    something that you can actually do with

    students and you might even design this

    assignment with students in advance

    rather than coming into it with here's

    exactly what we're going to do you might

    have some options or like a menu to be

    able to choose from thank you John

    Stapleton from that idea and the student

    might come in and go I want to be able

    to do this this and this and what about

    if we added this other thing that's not

    on the menu or a selection of the

    different options that are available to

    us this is something I've done with like

    undergraduate classes graduate classes

    and even elementary students were kind

    of like help them come up with

    assignment for themselves that related

    to something that they needed to learn

    for a class or for a degree or whatever

    or it was just interesting to them but

    here's what the participants said about

    how they might be able to improve the

    assignment so some thought the

    assignment may have been too difficult

    so being able to reduce the difficulty

    level might help some students so for

    example using some code examples to kind

    of build off of rather than having to

    like code something without any examples

    to build off of they also felt that the

    assignment could be shortened by

    removing the sentiment analysis and just

    engaging in a discussion on that topic

    or reflecting on it rather than actually

    doing it another suggestion from the

    cyber security world was using the build

    it break it fix it approach which was

    basically you would have it so that one

    person would build something another

    person in the group might like go and

    try and break it and then try and fix it

    so it kind of creates this cycle of

    creating something and then trying to

    break that thing and then trying to fix

    the thing that was broken with it so

    trying to find vulnerabilities with like

    the algorithm or whatever what was

    interesting about these discussions is

    the author's note on page three that

    quote we observed from our analysis of

    the discussion was heavily biased toward

    the negative effects of content

    moderation with little discussion of

    cases where it could be beneficial end

    quote that's a really interesting

    finding for this particular study for

    myself on assignments like these

    Whenever there was like many different

    perspectives or angles that we could

    look at it I would treat it as like a

    gym with many facets and you could look

    at it from different angles and go well

    what would the perspective be from this

    perspective what would it be from this

    other perspective and another

    perspective and I try and like pose some

    questions that would get students to

    think of these different perspectives

    even if I like wholeheartedly disagreed

    with a question that I was asking it was

    beneficial to kind of go through those

    questions and think of how you might

    respond to somebody who has an

    alternative understanding of an idea or

    whether or not something is or is not

    considered ethical Etc so I'd recommend

    if you are going to engage in like these

    kind of assignments make sure that

    there's not like a right and wrong way

    to think of this but think of like the

    gray area in between with some of these

    like well while we might consider this

    to be unethical in terms of How It's

    impacting users it's also benefiting the

    shareholders of this organization so

    let's talk about how there is some give

    and take and that we need to acknowledge

    both of them and understand both of them

    because if people are going to go into

    CS like if they're going to create an

    app or something or a game they're going

    to have pressures from both sides of

    things and they need to make like

    different stakeholders happy with this

    not just the users and not just the

    board of directors or the shareholders

    Etc in other words there's just many

    more nuances to consider when it comes

    to Ethics in relation to technology and

    computer science Etc but the next

    section 4.3 kind of talks about this a

    bit more so this is on the opinions of

    integrating ethics most people had a

    positive reflection on this assignment

    they like that this is situated within

    the real world that it allowed them to

    kind of like dive into some interests on

    Advanced topics quote however

    participants did raise concerns about

    the integration of these topics into

    technical assignments some expressed

    that they would rather study ethics

    outside of Cs curriculum and prefer it

    be a Standalone course if I am expecting

    and wanting a class to be technical in

    nature I would likely be unhappy writing

    a paper since it is not what I signed up

    for end quote it's from page four now

    this brings up a really interesting idea

    I've talked about this in other episodes

    on curricula like in episode 125 images

    of curriculum in episode 126

    contemporary venues of curriculum

    inquiry I talk about how there are many

    different ways of thinking of a

    curriculum or a degree in terms of what

    is the purpose or the vision for that

    which Speaking of check out episode 20

    CS for what diverse visions of Computer

    Science Education and practice for a

    more nuanced discussion on that idea but

    if I were to like really take a

    reductionist approach and like kind of

    create two categories some people might

    go into a computer science class and

    they might think of just the technical

    I'm going to learn how to code and

    that's it other people might go to it

    and from a more broader understanding

    like I'm willing to learn about not only

    just how to program but the impacts of

    computing we're going to talk about the

    ethics the history of it etc etc now

    obviously in that hypothetical there's a

    lot of gray area in between many other

    different ways of thinking of this but

    for the sake of the argument think of it

    as these two separate camps basically to

    make this a little bit easier to

    understand now to make this a little

    less personal in terms of like it's tied

    to computer science let's talk about

    this in relation to music which again my

    background's in music education studied

    percussion Etc so if I went into a

    percussion lesson and I wanted to learn

    how to play the marimba which is like a

    large xylophone you play it with like

    two to four mallets and you can make

    some really interesting beautiful spooky

    whatever kind of music that you'd like

    if I went into those marimba lessons I

    personally would be expecting to learn

    the technicalities some ways that I can

    improve my musicianship and learn some

    specific pieces that I can perform in

    like a recital or something like that

    that is the first category where you're

    going into it expecting to learn

    essentially the algorithms you're going

    to learn how to create music or create

    with code but if instead I went into

    those lessons and they talked about how

    there's a Rosewood shortage which is a

    type of wood and how that is impacting

    like whether or not there are marimbas

    available or other instruments that use

    that Rosewood and how this is creating

    some D4 station issues that are

    problematically impacting different

    climates and different environments or

    different locales and I had to write an

    essay about how that impact relates to

    myself wanting to get better at marimba

    but we also learned like a piece or two

    and learned some technical related

    things within that particular set of

    lessons that might be more of the

    broader conceptualizing of computer

    science so again on one hand we have the

    technical I'm learning how to play the

    instrument on the other hand I might

    learn somewhat how to play the

    instrument but also focus on other areas

    like some of the ethics related to

    playing that instrument so same thing

    with the computer science we might learn

    just the algorithms or we might learn

    algorithms and the ethics or impacts of

    what we do with those algorithms again

    there's a lot of like gray area in

    between those two different like camps

    that I've created but the point is

    students come into these classes with an

    expectation of where it's going to lean

    towards one of these camps or another

    one of these camps as computer science

    Educators we also might lean more

    towards one or the other you might have

    just heard that and go well duh Jared

    we're supposed to focus on this camp and

    not this other camp but another computer

    science educator might have a completely

    flipped or somebody might have a

    completely different perspective from a

    third camp that I didn't even mention

    all of these are things that we could

    think about when we are teaching

    students or designing a class and that

    might be something that you discuss the

    first class that you have with students

    here's what the expectations are so you

    can manage them from the beginning do

    they expect to 100 only focus on

    learning how to write algorithms and not

    talking about the impacts of computing

    or is it mainly going to focus on

    impacts of computing and not necessarily

    even talk about the algorithms again

    where you align there's no right or

    wrong way of doing this I think it in a

    healthy way it should probably be

    somewhere towards the middle but it

    depends on what you're signing up for

    are you signing up for a computer

    science degree are you signing up for a

    boot camp to learn how to use a very

    specific programming language in a very

    specific context just so you can get a

    job if that is your only goal and you

    want to do it in a compressed period of

    time then you might only learn the

    algorithms the technical side of things

    but if you want to learn broadly

    speaking then maybe you'll get a full

    degree so in other words there's just

    many things to consider when kind of

    creating these different options and

    thankfully there are many different

    options for people to take again I'm a

    huge fan of multi-perspectable education

    so I think there's a lot of value in

    that but that's just my opinion and

    that's something that I value which

    Speaking of some of the students in this

    study had mentioned that this approach

    or this kind of assignment might end up

    pushing a particular set of values that

    may or may not align with the students

    like what if some students are in favor

    of content moderation other students or

    not depending on how you design the

    assignment it might make it so that it

    says there is a right or wrong way to

    approach this which might be received

    differently depending on the camp that

    the student is in if they align with the

    design of the assignment cool they might

    like it but if they don't align with it

    then they might feel like they are being

    attacked so that's yet another thing to

    consider whenever designing any kind of

    assignment what are the values that are

    embedded within the assignment or what

    kind of questions might be raised and

    different perspectives might be explored

    through the assignment if there are many

    questions in many perspectives then it

    might come across less of as a form of

    colonization and more of an exploration

    of different understandings on a

    particular topic now the last subsection

    of the findings is 4.4 so this talks

    about new assignment ideas so the

    authors describe how they collaborate

    with students to come up with some

    different ideas for different variations

    or extensions that they could add on

    this particular topic so for example on

    page five they have a table and it has

    some different contexts that they might

    explore like they might be able to

    explore algorithms for organ donor

    matching or addiction to social media or

    context of dark patterns on the web

    influence of search engines on what news

    stories users see misuse of user data

    and right to be forgotten user data and

    privacy usability and inclusivity in web

    forms and mental health impacts of

    social media apps all of these are

    really interesting ethics discussions or

    assignments that could be explored and

    if you want to see what the assignment

    ideas are for each one of those because

    you might want to use them in your

    classroom make sure you check out page

    five of this paper now one of the things

    that I really appreciate is the authors

    talk about how they tried to improve the

    assignment based off of feedbacks that

    they received so in section five which

    is titled improvements to the assignment

    they talk about how instead of using

    paragraph text they created a basically

    a list of steps that students could

    follow to go through the assignment have

    very clear understanding of what they're

    supposed to do for each one of those

    steps that is a very simple little

    change that you can make an assignment

    that might help some students so another

    thing to improve the assignment is they

    realize they need to balance out the

    scenario so it doesn't just explore the

    harms of content moderation but can also

    talk about the benefits of it and kind

    of explore some of the potential false

    negatives and false positives that might

    occur with content moderation these are

    all great Reflections to have on how to

    improve an assignment into something

    that I highly recommend like for example

    I had a professor that I did a residency

    with across like multiple semesters of

    the same course so I did three semesters

    in a row with him and I wanted to see

    how he kept some stuff the same and what

    he changed and why he ended up doing

    that so you engage in a lot of

    conversations about how after we

    completed a project on a particular idea

    or whatever or even just a simple

    assignment we would talk about what

    worked with this particular assignment

    or project and what didn't work what

    could we fix for next time or try and

    improve rather and then the following

    semester we would try and Implement that

    Improvement in a different way and again

    just go through the this continuous

    cycle of improving the assignment or

    project I think that is a really

    worthwhile thing to do and I praise the

    authors for being open with us and

    talking about how hey we've created this

    thing it's imperfect we uh recognize

    that we got feedback from the students

    and we're sharing you how we have

    changed Things based on that feedback I

    think that's a very realistic approach

    to how you might engage in these kind of

    assignments rather than I've made an

    assignment I never need to touch this

    again it'll be relevant for the next 20

    years of myself teaching probably not

    now this paper ends with a discussion

    and so in the discussion section the

    authors say quote We Believe CS

    Educators can Empower students to become

    more proactive in considering social

    impacts of their work embedding ethics

    topics and discussions throughout

    computer science coursework can help

    accomplish this and has other positive

    side effects end quote that's from page

    five now I totally agree I think it's

    very important to engage in ethics and

    to embed it not just as a standalone

    one-off thing but you can embed it

    throughout different assignments

    throughout a degree program or

    throughout K-12 tenure Etc the more you

    do it the more commonplace is going to

    become so for example in undergraduate

    courses that I used to design and

    facilitate at Arizona State University

    one of the things that we intentionally

    did in the design of things was to make

    a class that was a standalone class that

    was specific to how to use technology in

    music education but we had it so that

    all of the classes like the art of

    teaching Voice or the art of teaching

    instrumental musicianship Etc all of

    those classes took the ideas that were

    in introduced in the digital technology

    class of hybrid class and they applied

    it into it so they would keep coming

    back to the same ideas of how to record

    how to manipulate sound how to remix Etc

    in all of the classes that they took

    after it so it was a standalone course

    but it was reinforced repeatedly every

    single semester after that that I think

    is an extremely important and easy way

    that you can introduce ethics into a

    degree program or into a class is like

    having a unit on ethics and then keep

    calling back to that every single time

    you do an assignment think about this in

    terms of

    hey you just created a program great

    what other perspectives might be harmed

    by that program that you created or my

    benefit from that program let's talk

    about the ethics of the thing that you

    created that is an alignment with a lot

    of the csta standards in terms of

    getting like diverse perspectives on a

    product or a program or whatever and

    it's just like you know beneficial in

    general for accessibility issues SEL

    issues ETC so I highly recommend

    engaging in it in that way but you might

    have it as a standalone class or as a

    unit Etc any of that is better than none

    of that and it really depends on so many

    contexts like how often do you see your

    students what are the classes typically

    designed as are they around units are

    they around projects are they around

    assignments Etc there are many ways to

    do education so figure out a way that

    works best for you and the classes and

    students that you work with now when you

    engage in those assignments just make

    sure that you talk about how there are

    many perspectives to this and try and

    bring them in as much as possible

    because some students may not have

    experienced the harm that others have

    when it comes to impacts of computing so

    again exploring multiple perspectives is

    extremely beneficial in the long run

    here's a quote from page six quote when

    speculating about ethics in the

    classroom students and instructors may

    fail to consider perspectives outside of

    their own as an instructor in their

    study said people tend to lean on their

    own experiences pretty heavily in

    speculation and don't unless they are

    very carefully prompted consider broader

    context including reflection is an

    opportunity to carefully prompt students

    to consider other perspectives and quote

    that's from page six I agree and a

    reflection can help but also engaging in

    a variety of questioning techniques

    which I've done multiple podcast

    episodes to talk about questioning

    techniques that you can use in computer

    science education so check out the show

    notes for some of those episodes for

    example episode 12 which was talking

    about computer science better questions

    better discussions another thing that

    authors mentioned in the discussion

    section is that it's important to talk

    about this transition from theoretical

    to a real world application so if you're

    going to have like a hypothetical

    scenario that is like using cats and

    dogs or inanimate objects or whatever

    and then you transition into how does

    this impact you as an individual or

    communities or groups of people Etc

    there needs to be some kind of guidance

    in that and some kind of weaning into it

    without just like jumping into the deep

    end because it might be harmful for some

    students and not necessarily for others

    again think through the different

    perspectives that your students might

    have that you might not understand when

    they're jumping into things that might

    have negatively impacted them in their

    life another thing that they mentioned

    is that it's very helpful to have a

    discussion group or focus group kind of

    talking about the assignment this is

    something that you can do before doing

    an assignment you can also doing do it

    during an assignment like I mentioned

    I'd kind of co-design assignments with

    students across kindergarten through

    graduate students or you can do it as a

    post assignment Reflections hey we've

    finished this thing next year when we do

    a similar assignment with other students

    what might you recommend that we change

    or add or really emphasize Etc these are

    all things that you can do like the very

    first person that I did a student

    teaching with is that an elementary

    school we're doing Elementary General

    music and band and so at the end of each

    one of the lessons he would kind of like

    write a little note in the lesson

    changes for next time do this for next

    time because he wouldn't teach that

    lesson again until the fall following

    year and so it was like helpful for him

    to be able to kind of keep track of what

    worked really well what could he modify

    for next time that's something that you

    could also do if you have a similar

    approach now the authors also know in

    the discussion section that there are

    many ways you can approach teaching

    ethics but if you focus on how to Think

    Through ethics rather than what to think

    this can make it a little bit more open

    for students who might disagree with

    your values and your understandings or

    your ways of being it makes it so that

    many people can engage in the ethics

    course in a way that is beneficial to

    everyone now if you want to see the

    course materials in the assignment and

    whatnot they do include a link to that

    it is footnote one and this is at the

    very bottom of page six so make sure you

    check that out if you're interested in

    it now at the end of these unpacking

    scholarship episodes I like to talk

    about some of my lingering questions and

    thoughts when I read through each one of

    these Publications that I share on this

    podcast one question that I have is

    what's your preferred balance between

    thinking and doing in computer science

    this is important because again if we

    think of those two different camps like

    if we have some people who think we

    should just focus on the doing and other

    people think that we should focus on the

    thinking about the impacts of computing

    there's going to be some tension in

    there so you need be able to figure out

    where is your preferred balance as an

    educator and what do you want for your

    students now if we broaden this and

    again think outside of computer science

    and like let's go with something that

    I'm interested in I'm interested in

    gaming if we spent a lot of time talking

    about gaming strategies and not actually

    playing video games I wouldn't really be

    as interested in that I also wouldn't be

    just interested in just playing without

    actually thinking about it I personally

    prefer some kind of more of a middle

    ground but some people might be more

    leaning towards one end versus another

    end some people really like only talking

    about strategy not necessarily playing

    it and other people only want to play it

    same thing again applies to whether you

    want to just think about or just do or

    create with computer science Concepts

    practices skills Etc now for yourself or

    for the students that you work with how

    did your preference change across

    different subject areas in some classes

    you might lean more towards the doing in

    other classes you might lean more

    towards the thinking why is that and how

    does that preference align or misalign

    with the students you've worked with in

    those different subject areas and

    context or when they think of your class

    computer science or technology or coding

    or whatever labeled as what other

    preconceived notions of where it's going

    to align on that Continuum which Camp

    will it lean towards one more or the

    other another question that I have is

    what's your own rationale for including

    or excluding ethics in your classes what

    approach or approaches do you lean

    toward do you like to do a standalone

    unit on ethics do you like to have a

    standalone class on ethics do you like

    to embed it into different assignments

    or only have a single assignment working

    on ethics how did you come to that

    rationale and that understanding and how

    do you think that is impacting students

    long term what would be the pros and

    cons or affordances of constraints of

    using a different approach in terms of

    how much time you have in terms of what

    students are supposed to learn in

    relation to standards which I

    problematize in many other episodes all

    of these are important things to

    consider when trying to figure out when

    to include ethics or not another

    question that I have is how might we

    connect ethics with other Frameworks for

    example there's a framework that John

    Stapleton recently introduced me to it's

    called aesthetic perspectives attributes

    of excellence in arts for Change and so

    these perspectives include things like

    disruption commitment communal meaning

    cultural Integrity risk-taking emotional

    experience sensory experience openness

    coherence resourcefulness and stickiness

    each of these are kind of unpacked in a

    link that I include in the show notes

    but I highly recommend taking a look at

    but if you were to approach some of

    these different aesthetic perspectives

    and use that as a lens for looking at

    ethics in computer science what might be

    gained from that what about some other

    different Frameworks or perspectives

    might we apply with ethics that may or

    may not exist within computer science in

    the field there are many ways to do

    ethics or to Think Through ethics so try

    and find inspiration from different

    sources outside of and within the field

    of Computer Science Education some of

    the ways that I used to teach Drumline

    were inspired by what I learned from

    martial arts or from sports psychology

    or from Neuroscience Etc there are many

    ways of like thinking and doing that can

    have a profound impact on teaching and

    learning so I highly recommend exploring

    them if you've got a topic or an idea

    that would be interesting to explore

    feel free to leave a comment on the

    YouTube video for this episode or any of

    the other episodes I do read all the

    comments and I try to respond to them

    all so I'm happy to unpack papers that

    you might recommend or some ideas of

    could be explored I do have a long list

    of papers to go through and I'm also

    happy to talk through some different

    guests who might be able to come on the

    show I've been doing a lot less guest

    interviews lately because I've been

    focusing on refining these unpacking

    scholarship episodes because of a huge

    project that I've got planned over this

    next coming year so all these have kind

    of been preparing for that but I'm more

    than happy to interview anybody on the

    show I just haven't actively reached out

    to any guests in quite some time I hope

    you enjoyed these solo episodes I've

    been refining them over the past couple

    of months and will continue to do so

    because I like to iterate on things and

    try and improve them but if you enjoyed

    this leave a like on YouTube or leave a

    review on whatever podcast app you're

    listening to the song and please just

    consider sharing it with somebody else

    it's the biggest compliment you can give

    but thank you sincerely for listening to

    this episode and the 100 and some odd

    episodes that are before this one stay

    tuned for another episode next week

    until then I'll be all staying safe and

    are having a wonderful week

Article

Jarzemsky, J., Paup, J., & Fiesler, C., (2023). “This Applies to the Real World”: Student Perspectives on Integrating Ethics into a Computer Science Assignment. Proceedings of the 2023 ACM SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education - SIGCSE ’23, 1–7.


Abstract

“There is a growing movement in undergraduate computer science (CS) programs to embed ethics across CS classes rather than relying solely on standalone ethics courses. One strategy is creating assignments that encourage students to reflect on ethical issues inherent to the code they write. Building off prior work that has surveyed students after doing such assignments in class, we conducted focus groups with students who reviewed a new introductory ethics-based CS assignment. In this experience report, we present a case study describing our process of designing an ethics-based assignment and proposing the assignment to students for feedback. Participants in our focus groups not only shared feedback on the assignment, but also on the integration of ethics into coding assignments in general, revealing the benefits and challenges of this work from a student perspective. We also generated novel ethics-oriented assignment concepts alongside students. Deriving from tech controversies that participants felt most affected by, we created a bank of ideas as a starting point for further curriculum development.”


Author Keywords

Ethics, introductory programming, CS1, social impact, assignments, university, undergraduate, content, focus groups, content moderation


My One Sentence Summary

This paper explores student perspectives on an undergraduate ethics assignment in a CS class.


Some Of My Lingering Questions/Thoughts

  • What’s your preferred balance between thinking and doing in computer science?

  • What’s your own rationale for including (or excluding) ethics in your classes?

    • What approach(es) do you lean toward?

  • How might we connect ethics with other frameworks (e.g., Aesthetic Perspectives)?


Resources/Links Relevant to This Episode



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