Transcript A Very Big Adventure - University of Limerick

A Very Big Adventure
Using the internet to enable multiinstitutional collaboration in
teaching computer ethics
Joe Griffin, Dept of CSIS
Overview
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Research questions
Subject domain
Multi-institutional approach
Collaborative Learning
Objectively measuring results
How LMS was used
Results
Future research
Some fundamental questions
 How do you motivate students?
 How do you make learning a very big
adventure?
 What happens when students
collaborate?
 How do you stop free riding?
 How do you measure learning?
PISE
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Professional Issues in Software Engineering
“The legal, ethical and social consequences
of the design, development and use of
computer systems”
Objective:
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To encourage students to develop the ethical
foundations of good professional practice in
computing
A major theme is the relationship between
ethics and the legal and social
consequences of being a computer
professional
Multi-institutional approach
 This study focuses on the use of
collaborative learning involving students
from three institutions
• University of Limerick, Ireland
• Sacred Heart University, USA
• de Montfort University, England
 Courses had similar focus
 Pedagogical approach was teaching and
learning collaboratively in groups
Why Collaborative Learning?
 Collaboration with other students has been shown to stimulate
activity, make learning more realistic and to stimulate motivation
 Research has also shown that moral dilemmas in computer ethics
encourage group discussion
 Teamwork encourages social facilitation, better learning and higher
cognitive skills
 Groups can produce better solutions to moral and ethical problems
than individuals
 Collaborative learning supported by instructional technology can
lead to deeper understanding and new knowledge creation
Problems with Collaborative Learning
 A major problem with the use of groupbased approaches is individual assessment
• Free-Riding: some individuals gain more (in
terms of grades) than they have put into the
process (this grows more problematic with larger
groups)
• Domination by the stronger students
Measuring learning
 Do traditional assessment tasks actually
measure moral reasoning ability?
 Alternative is a method based on Kohlberg’s
Stage Theory of Moral Development
 Developed from Piaget’s work – 2 stage
model
 Moral Judgment Test (MJT) - Lind 1984 2004
Kohlberg’s 6 stage model
LEVEL
Pre-conventional
Conventional
Post-conventional
STAGE
SOCIAL ORIENTATION
DESCRIPTION
1
Obedience and punishment
Fear of punishment
2
Individualism & Exchange
Returning favours
3
Good interpersonal relationships
Putting yourself in other's shoes
4
Social Order
Avoiding societal breakdown
5
Social contract & individual rights
Obeying the law and upholding
rights such as liberty and life
6
Universal Principles
Guided by principles of justice,
human rights and human dignity
Kohlberg’s definition of moral judgement
Affective, cognitive and behavioural domains
Moral Ideals
(motives,
principles,
attitudes)
Moral
Reasoning
Competence
Moral
Action
MJTan adequate moral reasoning measurement tool ?
 the ability to measure both the cognitive and affective aspects
or moral behaviour
 the inclusion of a moral task
 non-fakeability (i.e. subjects should not be able to get scores
higher than their moral reasoning competency)
 sensitivity to change, measure the subject's own moral
principles rather than imposing external moral expectations
 equivalence of both pro and con arguments in terms of
Kohlberg's six stages.
Collaborative Tools on Blackboard
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Discussion Board: Asynchronous
Send Email:
Asynchronous
File Exchange:
Asynchronous
Virtual Chat:
Synchronous
Blackboard use
 Management - self-organisation students into
groups, selection of topics, tutorial times and
presentation times
 Accessing learning materials and external links
 Communication
• lecturer to student
• student to lecturer
• student to student
 Intra-group collaboration using self-regulated
discussion groups
The study
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2 cycles over 2 academic years
Equal numbers from each university
Groups selected a scenario
Worked together in virtual learning groups to solve
moral dilemma
 Used MJT to objectively measure any changes in
moral reasoning
 Only compared MJT scores from UL students to
account for differences in teaching input
 Hypothesised that higher C index (of >5) would be
achieved by ‘international’ group members
Results - 1st study
 No significant differences
 Possible reasons:
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the asynchronous nature of the tool
lack of organization skills of students
lack of roles within the group
importance
allowing virtual groups to self organise (setting own
deadlines and milestones)
 needed more time to get to know each other, to
articulate their strengths and weaknesses
 the nature of the moral dilemmas
 test fatigue
C Index scores
Results - 2nd study
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12.00
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8.00
6.00
4.00
2.00
0.00
International scores
UL scores
Average all
Average
Female
Average
Male
Conclusion
 there was a greater improvement in moral
reasoning development as measured by the
MJT when learners participate in
collaborative virtual learning groups when
compared with the results achieved by
learners in single institution groups
 there was a greater measure of
improvement for female students than for
male students
 care needs to be taken in establishing and
sustaining virtual learning groups.
Future Research
 Switching to Moodle
 Identifying appropriate case studies
 Introducing multi-cultural perspective
Contact details
Joe Griffin
Department of Computer Science and
Information systems
University of Limerick
Limerick
Ireland
Email: [email protected]