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Consequences of Computing:
A Framework for Teaching
Teaching Topics, Principles, and Skills in the Conceptual Framework - Page 29 of 36
Teaching Topics, Principles, and Skills in the Conceptual Framework
The list of principles and skills we have just covered is an imposing set with enough content
for even several courses, if the requirement is that all of these things be done in detail and
separately. This is particularly true when there are important topics like privacy, risks, and
property to cover. But consider that in an introduction to programming class, students learn
one (if not two) particular programming languages, elementary principles of program design,
some database structures, and are introduced to many of the "recurring principles" listed in
Curricula 1991. This is not done by teaching each of these separately and in detail, but by
having students design, implement, and exercise programs that incorporate these principles.
In the same way, students can cover the topic of privacy by investigating electronic monitoring
of workers. The framework we present, however, allows this investigation to be grounded in
the basics of utilitarian and deontological ethical arguments about privacy, while
recognizing the importance of the varying contexts in even the most monolithic organizations.
Similarly, students can analyze a case history of whistle blowing to help understand the topic
of individual responsibility. But the whistleblowing case can be considered in the light of
what we know about power in organizations, and can help students identify abstract ethical
principles from ethics codes in concrete situations. Thus, with the proper perspective, the
topics, principles, and skills can be covered in a reasonable amount of time. To the extent
that these issues can be covered more than once, or in more than one place in the curriculum,
they will be better apprehended by students. But they can be covered within the constraints of
a standard computer science undergraduate program.
Figure 4 shows several examples of how this can be done in two representative cells from the
conceptual framework. The exercises for each topic allow the instructor and student to
explore that topic while being aware of the ethical principles involved, of the level of
social analysis, and of the particular principles and skills the discussion of the topics
should invoke. Each of the two cells we have blown up here provide several exercises that
might be used to teach the ethical issues that are relevant to it. The particular exercises
are merely suggestions, but their curricular coherence stems from the fact that they are
related to context provided by the table and to the principles and skills we have outlined
above.
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