An online, interactive activity to encourage professional and ethical decision making with a personal reflection with targeted questions.
The concept was developed due to low lecture attendance (students are working in clinic for their other subjects and felt the practical classes took precedence). The academic felt students were missing out on the ethical discussions and decision making that was covered in the face to face classes. The activity was developed to bridge the gap and allow students to experience the challenge of making ethical decisions.
To remove the pressure of judgement, the actual assessment is separated from the activity. This allow students to make mistakes without penalty, and to choose other options if the result is negative.
The assessment is a personal reflection driven by three questions. These questions are peer marked, with the academic taking a sample of the answers to assess. The students are provided with a sample answer and a marking matrix. They receive a mark for completing their reflection and a lesser mark for peer marking.
Details
- CLASS SIZE
- 80-100
- CLASS LEVEL
- Third year
- ASSESSMENT SECURITY
- Low security
- TIME REQUIREMENTS
- Medium time
- GRADUATE ATTRIBUTES
- Effective communication skills, Ethical and social understanding
- CONDITIONS
- Work-related, Peer-assessed, Sequence
- FEATURES
- Authentic, Online, Problem based
- TAGS
- multimodal, technology enriched learning, collaborative learning, feedback-rich, reflective/reflexive, staged, peer-led learning
Advantages
Available online and can be completed off campus at any time; based on actual cases with real consequences; allows for experimentation and exploration without penalty; the activity feeds into a personal reflective journal with targeted questions; student may collude - but this may lead to a discussion of ethical considerations.
Challenges
Collecting cases that had a potentially positive outcome; unable to ensure students do not collude on activity but this could also be a benefit, it may lead to a discussion of ethical considerations.
Tips for implementation
Plan thoroughly and well in advance, the planning of the structure took much longer than the implementation.
How it supports academic integrity
When students complete their individual reflection in Blackboard, the google forms allows for capture of student access data.
Ms Sandra Thwaites
s.thwaites@uq.edu.au
Sandra began her career as an Art Director in advertising. Starting in Sydney, and again when she moved to Queensland, Sandra saw an opportunity to open a professional design studio. After a successful decade of happy clients, Bond University came calling and her transition into the education sector began.
During her 14 years at Bond, Sandra designed and developed two fully accredited degrees in Multimedia (BMM, MMM) and realised a deep interest in digital literacy. Moving into the VET sphere broadened Sandra's knowledge and skills, leading to a shift to learning design at both VET and university level, specialising in blended and eLearning development. Find out more