Integrating Ethics into Computer Science Education: Multi-, Inter-, and Transdisciplinary Approaches

In this episode I unpack Goetze’s (2023) publication titled “Integrating ethics into computer science education: Multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinary approaches,” which unpacks three approaches to integrating ethics with computer science education.

  • Spoken quite extensively on this podcast

    about how there are many ways that you

    can integrate computer science with

    other subject areas what about

    integrating computer science with ethics

    what kind of Frameworks might we use to

    explore that topic today's paper

    actually explores that it's titled

    integrating ethics into Computer Science

    Education multi-inter and

    transdisciplinary approaches this was

    written by Tristan Getz here's the

    abstract for the paper quote while calls

    to integrate ethics into Computer

    Science Education go back decades recent

    high-profile ethical failures related to

    Computing technology are large

    technology companies governments and

    academic institutions have accelerated

    the adoption of computer ethics

    education at all levels of instruction

    discussions of how to integrate ethics

    into existing computer science programs

    often focus on the structure of the

    intervention embedded modules or

    dedicated courses humanists or computer

    scientists as ethics instructors or on

    the specific content to be included list

    of case studies and essential topics to

    cover while proponents of computer

    ethics education often emphasize the

    importance of closely connecting at the

    ethical and Technical content in these

    initiatives most do not reflect in depth

    on the variety of ways in which the

    disciplines can be combined in this

    paper I deploy a framework for

    cross-disciplinary studies that

    categorizes academic projects that work

    across disciplines as multi-disciplinary

    interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary

    depending on the degree of integration

    when applied to computer ethics

    education this framework is orthogonal

    to the structure and content of the

    initiative as I illustrate using

    examples of dedicated ethics courses and

    embedded modules it therefore highlights

    additional features of

    cross-disciplinary teaching that need to

    be considered when planning a computer

    Ethics program I argue that computer FX

    education should aim to be at least

    interdisciplinary multidisciplinary

    initiatives are less aligned with the

    pedagogical aims of computer ethics and

    that computer ethics Educators should

    experiment with fully transdisciplinary

    education that could transform computer

    science as a whole for the better end

    quote brought a summarizes article into

    a single sentence I say that this

    article unpacks three approaches to

    integrating ethics with Computer Science

    Education now this article is talking

    about ethics in relation to higher

    education Computer Science Education I'm

    going to talk about this in relation to

    K-12 Computer Science Education now I

    come from this from a background with

    having worked with every single grade

    kindergarten through doctoral students

    in a variety of contexts and having

    designed professional development and

    curricula that's been used by hundreds

    of thousands of students around the

    world and teachers as well so in episode

    real world colon student perspectives on

    integrating ethics into a computer

    science assignment we talked about how

    some undergraduate students gave some

    feedback on an Ethics assignment in a

    higher education course I talked about

    how that might relate to K-12 education

    for computer science Educators who are

    interested in including ethics but one

    of the things that I talked about is

    that there are many ways that you could

    integrate ethics into Computer Science

    Education so this paper is specifically

    going to focus on that now you can find

    a link to this paper in the show notes

    which is at jaredaliri.com or by

    clicking the link in the app that you're

    listening to this on as well as a bunch

    of other computer science education

    resources like this is episode 180 of

    the CIA Sk8 podcast but there's a bunch

    more content on the website that is

    related to Computer Science Education

    social sponsor of gaming drumming stuff

    because I'm a full-time content creator

    so if you haven't been on my website yet

    check it out just search for my name or

    go to jaredleary.com now in the

    introduction the author mentions on page

    interdisciplinary transdisciplinary and

    so on are often used interchangeably

    without reflecting on differences these

    Concepts might capture and without

    explicit reflection on how the different

    disciplines in question are to be

    integrated by fixing the meaning of

    these terms in place we can see more

    clearly the particular advantages and

    challenges of multiple approaches to

    computer ethics education and even

    imagine new ways of doing so end quote I

    totally agree with that one of the

    problems that I ran into when I was

    doing my dissertation is there were so

    many different ways to kind of explore

    these intersections of multiple

    disciplines or domains some might call

    it cross-disciplinary or

    interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary

    transdisciplinary Etc there's also other

    types of integration like plural

    disciplinary or metadisciplinary or an

    interdiscipline or looking at it from

    Frameworks such as like embedded

    thematic integration knowledge

    integration or even learner-initiated

    integration all of these kind of like

    work together and kind of like muddy the

    Waters of what it looks like when two

    domains in some way intersect with each

    other this might be like a Venn diagram

    where only a little sliver is kind of

    intersecting or it might merge all the

    way over into like an interdiscipline

    where they create a new discipline or

    transdisciplinary where it's kind of

    like there's many different disciplines

    together so we're going to kind of

    unpack these and talk about it in

    relation to the intersections of ethics

    and computer science education so in

    section two the author talks about some

    of the goals of computer ethics

    education so here's a quote from page

    ethical values those of the Computing

    professions those of their society and

    the variety of value systems that exist

    in the world two be able to analyze and

    produce ethical arguments three be able

    to describe the positive and negative

    ways in which a variety of computing

    Technologies impact the environment

    individual group and groups of people

    especially marginalized groups four be

    able to identify the values and

    assumptions embedded in a variety of

    Technology five be familiar with the

    values codes and standards of

    professionalism expected of a Computing

    practitioner end quote so graduates of a

    computer science program should be able

    to do that according to this kind of

    framework now I would argue that these

    could kind of serve as like big ideas

    that could help guide conversations of

    Ethics in K-12 education as well but how

    you explore explore these different

    broader ideas or questions or topics Etc

    depends on the goals of your program of

    yourself of your students various

    stakeholders Etc so section three of

    this paper talks about different

    cross-disciplinary typologies that might

    be used when exploring this intersection

    and so the author Begins by kind of

    talking about how there are many ways

    you can do this so it's like a Continuum

    of how much this will kind of intersect

    on the different Venn diagrams if we

    only focus on ethics and computer

    science education it could be just a

    one-off little intersection it could be

    like an entire unit it could be an

    entire semester or a course or it could

    be an entire degree on just the

    intersections of ethics and computer

    science and there's many different

    varying degrees in between each of those

    little examples that I gave but let's

    talk about the three different

    cross-disciplinary typologies that are

    mentioned in this particular article so

    here's a quote from page 646 quote multi

    and plural disciplinary work juxtapose

    multiple disciplines where the former

    puts seemingly disconnected disciplines

    together such as history and Mathematics

    and the latter juxtaposes disciplines

    that appear to have some Affinity such

    as French and Latin interdisciplinary

    work by contrast requires interaction

    between the disciplines through the

    distinctive Concepts methods results

    data and so on finally transdisciplinary

    work provides a meta framework of

    concepts for understanding different

    disciplines from the perspective of

    philosophy or sociology of knowledge end

    quote and so the author mentions that

    there is kind of like a bit of a

    hierarchy there in that multi and plural

    disciplinary are kind of like the lower

    levels of integration and then

    interdisciplinary is kind of like the

    step up from that and then

    transdisciplinary can be like an end

    result of like moving beyond disciplines

    or Beyond silos in general having also

    explored a variety of like integration

    work which I do link to in the show

    notes there are several episodes that

    talk about integration I will say that

    there's not a consensus on how each of

    these different methods or typologies

    are defined within the field of

    curricular studies so while one author

    might describe multidisciplinary one way

    another might describe it a different

    way so section four of this paper is

    titled A cross-disciplinary framework

    and so it kind of outlines the three

    different approaches that are unpacked

    here so I'm going to read off a

    paragraph that kind of unpacks each one

    of these and kind of talk about them

    after the fact so this is from page 647.

    quote a multidisciplinary collaboration

    involves researchers who work in

    parallel or sequentially from discipline

    specific bases to address a common

    problem in these collaborations

    researchers from different disciplines

    recognize that they have a common

    interest in some subject of research and

    would mutually benefit from multiple

    inquiries from different disciplinary

    approaches however each researcher or

    team engages independently in the

    inquiry from within their own

    disciplinary context using their

    disciplines methods background knowledge

    and conceptual Frameworks reporting

    their findings to their collaborations

    in other disciplines only after their

    own work is complete the inquiries

    happen either in parallel or

    sequentially with one disciplines

    experts handing off the results to the

    next end quote now one way that I've

    heard multidisciplinary described is

    kind of like how a high school is set up

    where you go to different classes and

    you are learning all these classes in

    parallel with each other but they don't

    necessarily intercept so one of the

    things that could be done to kind of

    like create the more of the intersection

    with multi-disciplinary is to kind of

    have a theme across the different

    classes that are kind of explored so I'm

    going to go explore the theme of like

    the Harlem Renaissance from an Arts

    perspective then I'm going to explore it

    from historical or sociological

    perspective and then I'm going to

    explore it from I don't know like a

    science perspective whatever that might

    be all disconnected and then maybe

    you'll bring it together at the end

    through some kind of culminating project

    but not necessarily the case depending

    on how you define multidisciplinary now

    this approach to multidisciplinary

    contrasts with interdisciplinary which

    again is also discussed on page 647

    quote an interdisciplinary research

    project involves researchers who work

    jointly but still from discipline

    specific basis to address a common

    problem in contrast with

    multidisciplinary research

    interdisciplinary collaborations require

    all disciplinary experts to work on the

    same project instead of pursuing

    discrete inquiries in doing so however

    each disciplinary expert or team still

    employs their own disciplines methods

    and conceptual Frameworks as in

    multidisciplinary research experts from

    different disciplines might work

    sequentially one disciplines findings

    being reported to the next but instead

    of being essentially separate inquiries

    on the same subject that are brought

    together only at critical milestones in

    an interdisciplinary collaboration every

    stage of work informs the next

    regardless of its disciplinary home end

    quote so this might be a kind of project

    where you actually collaborate with

    another teacher so for example you might

    be collaborating with a science teacher

    and you're going to create some kind of

    like device that's going to measure the

    I don't know soil temperature and

    weather blah blah blah if students are

    working on that same project in both

    your computer science class and the

    science class or maybe you're like an

    elementary teacher who teaches both

    simultaneously that might be an example

    of interdisciplinary research or an

    interdisciplinary project so that

    overlap on the Venn diagram is much

    stronger there but then we can get rid

    of the whole idea of silos begin with if

    we explore transdisciplinary which again

    is talked about on page 647 so here's a

    quote from there quote a

    transdisciplinary research project

    involves researchers who work jointly

    using a shared conceptual framework

    drawing together discipline specific

    theories Concepts and approaches to

    address a common problem in a

    transdisciplinary project the

    collaboration extends Beyond

    contributing to the same project using

    discrete disciplinary methods the nature

    of the project requires integrating at

    the level of the conceptual framework

    and methods used in order to address a

    complex subject in the process a

    distinctive approach May emerge that

    could become a new discipline itself

    such as a reproachment of philosophy

    psychology Neuroscience computer science

    Linguistics and other fields that

    produce the discipline of cognitive

    science end quote okay now again because

    there are many different ways of

    conceiving of these like

    cross-disciplinary approaches and

    whatnot with a way I've heard like

    interdiscipline and transdisciplinary is

    a little bit different than what was

    described here and this is not a knock

    on the author by by any means so when I

    explored the intersections of computer

    science and music making in chiptunes in

    for my dissertation we were looking at

    this like online discussion forum

    there's like 10 000 members like 11

    million words of data something like

    that and they were making music with old

    retro video game consoles Hardwares Etc

    in order to do that they had to engage

    in computer science practices explore

    different concepts Etc like to be able

    to modify the hardware or even design

    and create new hardware or to just be

    able to like reprogram old Hardware to

    be able to like perform with like a Sega

    Genesis or Mega Drive as an instrument

    and a modern computer or laptop whatever

    if we were to look at this from like a

    problem based approach it would be

    transdisciplinary in that the problem is

    people wanted to be able to make music

    with Hardware that previously was not

    designed to be able to make music so the

    way they did that was exploring like

    electrical engineering exploring

    programming exploring Visual Arts

    practices also engaging entrepreneurial

    practices like they explored all these

    different ways to be able able to do

    that this could be described as

    transdisciplinary in that they are

    exploring a problem without thinking of

    disciplinary silos but thinking of how

    to be able to solve the problem using

    whatever Concepts practices Etc that

    they could come up with or find so if

    you focus on the problem it's

    transdisciplinary but if you focus on

    that intersection that merging of

    computer science and music to be able to

    create chiptunes that might be an

    entirely new interdiscipline of

    chiptunes so the way that I can kind of

    conceive of an interest discipline

    versus trans disciplinary is

    transdisciplinary is more of a verb it

    is a process that you engage in when you

    are exploring a problem or different

    practices Etc from many different fields

    whereas an interdiscipline is more of a

    noun where it is like the new thing the

    new discipline that is a merger of

    former disciplines so for example like

    bioengineering is a merging of biology

    with like engineering or bioethics which

    is a merger of biology and ethics those

    in my opinion are interdisciplines now

    that I've nerded out on those three

    different ideas is let's talk about how

    we can use them to kind of explore the

    intersections of ethics and computer

    science so in Section 5

    multi-disciplinary computer fxc author

    unpacks well what would ethics look like

    from a multi-disciplinary perspective

    here's a quote from page 648 quote a

    multi-disciplinary computer ethics

    initiative integrates ethical education

    in parallel or in sequence with

    technical instruction but keeps these

    disciplines separate within the degree

    program as a whole ethical Concepts and

    skills are taught separately from

    technical Concepts and skills and they

    are brought together only at Key

    milestones in the course of the study

    ethics is treated as something that can

    inform and improve technical Computing

    work but not as essential to the work of

    computing per se and quote so the author

    unpacks many different ways that you

    might be able to explore this within a

    computer science class so for example

    like a an assignment that might have

    like a little connection with ethics

    like okay so you're going to program

    this thing but also think about the

    ethical implications of the results on

    users or whatever could be a single

    assignment like that it could be like an

    entire unit but it could also be like an

    entirely separate course that is

    specific to ethics maybe it's just a

    broad ethics course or a course that's

    specifically on Computing ethics or

    ethics and computer science but again it

    is disconnected from all of the other

    classes or the all the other degree work

    so as we talked about in last week's

    episode episode 179 this is an approach

    that you could also use in your K-12

    classes as well you could have a class A

    unit a semester

    Etc that is specific to ethics and

    computer science or as simple as a

    single assignment that does that now the

    author notes is this approach has an

    advantage in that it is relatively easy

    to be able to add this into existing

    technical curricula but there are some

    disadvantages to this so here's a quote

    from page 648 that unpacks that quote

    these approaches fail to take on

    Miller's Insight that Technical and

    ethical issues are best taught in

    connection with one another rather than

    separately this artificially isolates

    subjects that in the professional World

    always co-occur Computing always takes

    place in Social context and ethical

    issues arise is in connection with

    specific aspects of technical Computing

    work and a little bit further down

    multi-disciplinary computer ethics

    education risks presenting ethics as

    supplemental to the real world of

    computer science namely the technical

    skills with the bulk of the curriculum

    dedicated to technical instruction

    independent of Ethics instruction and

    ethics interventions limited to one-off

    courses or assessments students are

    often given the impression that ethics

    is an afterthought burden or box to tick

    end quote I really appreciate the

    author's framing of this in terms of

    like both what are some of the

    advantages and disadvantages or the

    affordances the constraints of such an

    approach again as I mentioned many times

    I like to focus on multi-perspective

    approaches to education there are many

    ways of doing things so we will look at

    something like multi-disciplinary

    computer ethics and go this works this

    does not but let's talk about the next

    potential way of integrating which is in

    section 6 interdisciplinary computer

    ethics this is from page 648 quote a

    closer integration of FX and Computing

    education would produce an

    interdisciplinary program where both

    disciplines are taught concurrently in

    service of the same shared goals each

    discipline remains distinct in the

    concepts background and skills that they

    bring to bear that both sets are used by

    instructors and students to engage with

    the same material in interdisciplinary

    Computing ethics education ethics is a

    skill set that is presented as a

    requirement for doing quality work in

    the Computing professions despite being

    different in kind from technical skills

    interdisciplinary computer ethics is

    perhaps easier to achieve in the context

    of Ethics modules which are taught in

    the midst of ongoing technical courses

    end quote now they often talks about

    advantages in terms of like it makes it

    so that when you're exploring both the

    ethical and the technical at the same

    time you are trying to unpack the

    impacts of computing from the programs

    that you're creating or the hardware

    software you are developing but again

    the author notes that there are some

    disadvantages to this approach it can

    require faculty members to be able to

    have an expertise in both Computing and

    ethics or collaborating with other

    people who have expertise that they

    don't have it can also take more time

    like I mentioned previously a a boot

    camp approach is very different than a

    broader CS approach where in the boot

    camp you might just be weren't learning

    like one IDE one programming language

    for the purpose of just getting a job so

    all you're doing is just coding all day

    long whereas computer science you might

    actually Explore More Than Just the

    technical and explore some of the ethics

    and the impacts as well as the

    theoretical and there's a Continuum

    clearly in between those two and the

    same thing applies into K-12 education

    as well so again are you going to focus

    on the technical or are you going to

    focus on mainly the theoretical or the

    ethical are you going to focus on

    somewhere in the middle we'll talk about

    that a little bit more when I do my

    lingering questions and thoughts at the

    end of this episode but again it is

    difficult to explore these different

    intersections if you do not have subject

    area expertise in both domains a reason

    why I am able to talk about with

    confidence the intersections of music

    and computer science education is

    because I have a background in both so

    all my degrees are in music education

    but then I've also taught Computer

    Science Education and developed

    curricula professional development etc

    for computer science Educators so

    because I have that experience in both

    domains I can confidently go into an

    interdiscipline like chiptunes and be

    able to speak confidently about the

    concepts practices Etc that are within

    both domains and how they intersect or

    don't which is one of the things that

    many curriculum Scholars don't talk

    about with integration is well what

    about the stuff that doesn't fit neatly

    within that little shared space in the

    Venn diagram what about everything

    outside of that but I've talked about

    that ranted about it in other integrated

    podcast episodes Linked In the show

    notes okay so interdisciplinary sounds

    cool it's like beneficial from a student

    perspective but it's a little bit harder

    from an instructor perspective the

    author next unpacks in section 7 the

    transdisciplinary computer ethics what

    does that mean there is a quote from

    page 649 quote the prefix trans in

    transdisciplinary suggests that such a

    project transcends the conventional

    divide between the disciplines involved

    going over and beyond their limitations

    and perhaps creating a new field of

    study better equipped to tackle some

    range of problems for example one way to

    interpret the emergence of cognitive

    science and of Science and Technology

    studies as distinctive Fields is that

    the various upon studying the mind and

    the social aspects of technoscience

    respectively came together to create new

    Concepts methods and theories that could

    not be produced within their progen

    enter disciplines similarly we might

    wonder what may emerge if ethics and

    Computing were to become so closely

    integrated as to produce a new

    discipline of research and education

    transdisciplinary work requires that

    practitioners in multiple disciplines

    use their distinct expertise to craft a

    new conceptual and methodological

    framework to tackle a shared inquiry end

    quote now a little bit further down on

    page 649 the author further emphasizes

    an important point that I think we

    should also consider in K-12 education

    quote a transdisciplinary approach to

    computer ethics would make ethical

    success at least as important as

    technical success in Computing generally

    on this approach ethical reflection is

    no longer a supplemental consideration

    as multidisciplinary interventions

    positions it nor is it an aligned but

    still alien skill set as it is

    positioned by transdisciplinary

    initiatives rather a on a

    transdisciplinary vision ethical

    reflection is a core skill for computing

    as important as other specialized areas

    of computing practice a technological

    innovation would not be considered

    technically sound unless it is also

    ethically responsible to deploy the

    conceptual Frameworks are not just

    running in parallel they have merged end

    quote Yeah so again another way that you

    can think of this like if you think of

    it as the noun that would be the

    interdiscipline the intersection of

    computing and ethics as a new discipline

    to explore if that is something that you

    are interested in cool you could totally

    do that another way of thinking of this

    is like broader than just ethics but

    also social justice which is obviously

    very related to it is looking at like

    what does a socially just Computer

    Science Education Program look like or

    as like the K-pop centers framework

    culturally responsive sustaining

    Computer Science Education Program what

    does that look like how do you merge

    those together those different

    perspectives from like Scholars like

    Geneva gay Gloria Ladson Billings Paris

    and lean Etc which I've talked about in

    some other episodes and I'll link to

    that in the show notes for example

    episode 40 which is titled toward a

    theory of culturally relevant pedagogy

    so the author provides multiple examples

    of well what would this kind of look

    like in a higher education context I'm

    not going to read them off because again

    I want you to read this article I think

    it's very interesting and there's a lot

    of applications that could be relevant

    to K-12 Educators as well as higher

    education but there are some problems

    with this so and while there are many

    advantages in terms of being able to

    explore things from a holistic manner

    not having disciplinary silos Etc like

    the problems again with having the

    expertise in multiple domains maybe not

    even just two domains but several

    domains it becomes harder from an

    instructional standpoint and from a

    preparation standpoint but if you listen

    to the podcast episodes that I talk

    about on rhizomatic learning or even

    like the Affinity space characteristics

    episode that I link to in the show notes

    that kind of gives you an idea of how

    you might explore from a

    transdisciplinary standpoint or even

    design curricula from a rhizomatic

    standpoint that supports

    transdisciplinary learning even if you

    are required to do standards in your

    K-12 classes so if you want to dive down

    that rabbit hold make sure you check out

    the links in the show notes in

    particular check out episode 150 which

    is titled fostering intersectional

    identities through rhizomatic learning

    as well as a panel of discussion for

    episode 75 rhizomatic learning with

    Catherine bornhurst John Stapleton and

    Katie Henry whereas the first episode

    kind of talks more of a curricular

    standpoint the second episode that I

    just mentioned that panel discussion

    talks more of like a pedagogical

    approach but then you can also explore

    episode 89 applications of affinity

    space characteristics in computer

    science education which kind of talks

    about how to design a class and

    facilitate a class that kind of supports

    this ability to explore many domains or

    interests simultaneously but this kind

    of approach can be difficult especially

    if you have like a lot of administrative

    pressures pressures from different

    stakeholders and whatnot in terms of

    what they expect students to be able to

    do and learn within your classes are

    they expecting everyone to come out with

    the same understanding are they

    expecting students to focus just on the

    technical rather than on a broader

    understanding of computer science and

    its impacts of computing now the last

    quote that I want to read from page 650

    kind of gives you an idea of what it

    might mean to be successful if some

    somebody were to go through some kind of

    a transdisciplinary Computing ethics

    course or degree or whatever quote a

    transdisciplinary computer ethics

    education program would be successful

    were to reliably produce experts in

    computer ethics and experts in other

    subfields of computing each of whom have

    enough complementary technical or

    ethical knowledge to be interactional

    experts with the others a certain

    Baseline level of ethical skill would be

    expected of all but there would remain

    an important role for computer ethics

    Specialists whose backgrounds might be

    subdivided further into those who focus

    on philosophy social science area area

    studies or stakeholder engagement end

    quote now that really resonates with me

    so again if you're going to like merge

    together and really focus on like ethics

    and Computing or social justice and

    Computing Etc or equity and Computing

    however you want to think of this like

    those different categories that all kind

    of resemble and blur together and

    Divergent in different ways in each one

    of those you have the ability to dive

    deeper into different avenues like if we

    look at the lgbtq umbrella so like as

    somebody who's in that who is pansexual

    I could look at it from like a sexuality

    perspective and dive deeper into that I

    could also look at it as somebody who's

    non-binary and and look at the like the

    the issues around trans rights etc those

    are two very different directions that I

    could specialize and go into within the

    lgbtqia plus umbrella Etc so whenever

    thinking of Ethics think not only of the

    macro but also the micro in terms of

    like what are the different subdomains

    or subfields within the broader areas of

    Ethics that could be explored within a

    classroom or within a particular

    assignment now that might not

    necessarily be something that you have

    to come up with like if you think back

    to episode 179 that released last week

    you could have students come up with

    their own little Explorations within a

    broader topic or even like a smaller

    topic and specifically find a niche that

    they are interested in exploring within

    that domain now at the end of this

    unpacking scholarship episodes I'd like

    to share some lingering questions and

    thoughts so one of them is how might we

    communicate and develop shared

    understandings of the integration of

    computer science and ethics so for

    example what about students admin

    parents Etc who think that computer

    science programs or classes should focus

    on the technical rather than the

    explorations of Ethics or social justice

    or Equity how do we communicate the

    value of exploring that and the

    long-term impact not only for the

    individuals taking those classes but for

    society as a whole and how do we develop

    that shared understanding to say look

    your goals will be met as well as the

    goals that I am putting forward or

    designing into this unit or class or

    assignment or whatever just like I've

    mentioned in the other integration

    episodes there are many different ways

    of conceiving of things or talking about

    things but if you come into a computer

    science class and say we're going to

    explore computer science well one person

    envisions in terms of is only going to

    focus on the technical versus your own

    which might focus on like the technical

    and the ethical that is something that

    needs to be communicated so that way

    there is a shared understanding of going

    ah yes I see what you're doing here so

    if an administrator walks into your

    class and goes why are you talking about

    ethics you should be learning how to

    program you can confidently say hey

    we're learning how to program while

    talking about ethics or however you end

    up embedding it within the classes that

    you work with another question that I

    have is what other Frameworks might we

    utilize when exploring the intersections

    of computer science and ethics so as I

    mentioned at the start of this episode

    there's other areas as well as like

    plural disciplinary metadisciplinary

    cross-disciplinary there's the embedded

    thematic knowledge learner initiated Etc

    forms of integration there are many

    different ways of conceiving of how

    people kind of create that Venn diagram

    between domains or disciplines and I'm

    sure there are plenty that I'm not

    thinking of that fall within those

    little categories or types that I listed

    off that might be beneficial or might be

    useful for the field now what we could

    do is look in other domains to see okay

    well how does social studies like

    Envision what integration might look

    like with other domains or what do the

    Arts look like but when we end up

    exploring those Integrations we have to

    think back to the things that I

    mentioned in episode 123 which is titled

    the subservient co-equal effective and

    social integration Styles and their

    implications for computer science quite

    a mouthful but is an important episode

    to Think Through are we doing this in a

    way that makes one domain subservient to

    another domain if so that could be

    problematic so if you haven't listened

    to that episode again 123 I highly

    recommend taking a look at that so in a

    little mini series on integration like

    episode 125 and episode 126 images of

    curriculum and contemporary venues of

    curriculum inquiry all kind of like dive

    deeper into some things to consider when

    doing integration but a final question

    that I have after reading this is when

    is there too little or too much of

    Ethics in computer science so each

    educator that you work with or yourself

    every student you work with every class

    degree Etc however macro micro you want

    to think of this might have a different

    answer to when there is too little or

    too much of Ethics in computer science

    it's important for you as an educator or

    as like a curriculum developer to Think

    Through what you intend for the

    saturation point to be E when it comes

    to that intersection of ethics and

    Computing or social justice and

    Computing or equity in Computing

    whatever variation you want to think of

    sitting down and thinking through and

    being intentional with that saturation

    point this is going to be where I'm

    aiming for in terms of a benchmark with

    each student or anyone who uses the

    lessons that I create or whatever it's

    important for you to think through that

    in advance so that way you can design

    for it if you actually intend to

    integrate Computing and ethics I do

    highly recommend taking a look at this

    article I also recommend taking a look

    at all the podcasts that are linked

    within the show notes at jaredolary.com

    but thank you so much for listening to

    this episode if you have any questions

    feel free to leave a comment on the

    YouTube video and maybe share this and

    other episodes with other Educators who

    might enjoy listening to this stay tuned

    next week for another episode until then

    I hope you're all staying safe and are

    having a wonderful week

Article

Goetze, T., (2023). Integrating Ethics into Computer Science Education: Multi-, Inter-, and Transdisciplinary Approaches. Proceedings of the 2023 ACM SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education - SIGCSE ’23, 645-651.


Abstract

“While calls to integrate ethics into computer science education go back decades, recent high-profile ethical failures related to computing technology by large technology companies, governments, and academic institutions have accelerated the adoption of computer ethics education at all levels of instruction. Discussions of how to integrate ethics into existing computer science programmes often focus on the structure of the intervention—embedded modules or dedicated courses, humanists or computer scientists as ethics instructors—or on the specific content to be included—lists of case studies and essential topics to cover. While proponents of computer ethics education often emphasize the importance of closely connecting ethical and technical content in these initiatives, most do not reflect in depth on the variety of ways in which the disciplines can be combined. In this paper, I deploy a framework from crossdisciplinary studies that categorizes academic projects that work across disciplines as multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, or transdisciplinary, depending on the degree of integration. When applied to computer ethics education, this framework is orthogonal to the structure and content of the initiative, as I illustrate using examples of dedicated ethics courses and embedded modules. It therefore highlights additional features of cross-disciplinary teaching that need to be considered when planning a computer ethics programme. I argue that computer ethics education should aim to be at least interdisciplinary—multidisciplinary initiatives are less aligned with the pedagogical aims of computer ethics—and that computer ethics educators should experiment with fully transdisciplinary education that could transform computer science as a whole for the better.”


Author Keywords

Ethics education, embedded ethics, data justice, ethics course, higher education, cross-disciplinary studies, interdisciplinary teaching and learning, responsible computing, transdisciplinary studies, interdisciplinary studies


My One Sentence Summary

This article unpacks three approaches to integrating ethics with computer science education.


Some Of My Lingering Questions/Thoughts

  • How might we communicate and develop shared understandings of the integration of computer science and ethics?

  • What other frameworks might we utilize when exploring the intersections of computer science and ethics?

  • When is there too little/much of ethics in CS?


Resources/Links Relevant to This Episode



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