Case studies offer abundant opportunities for students to enhance their critical thinking skills. We have been diligently crafting and continue to develop case studies for your use in various settings. Whether you prefer to incorporate a technical aspect or use them for roundtable discussions, feel free to tailor them to your needs.
Overview
Case studies provide an excellent platform for students to engage in discussions and wrestle with decisions made, or not made, in the technical world. Developed by Dr. Mark A. Wells and Dr. Jim Tippey from Montreat College, this collection of case studies will continue to expand as the toolkit develops and incorporates contributions from various sources.
These case studies have been used as discussion pieces in the classroom and as assignments that challenge students to dive deeper and make decisions. This approach allows students to explore their own ethics and how it could apply in a working environment.
As an instructor, you can determine the best method for integrating these case studies into your classes and curriculum. You might also consider using them as examples to encourage students to create their own case studies, ensuring that any biases are minimized in the process.
The goal in using case studies is to stimulate discussion and prompt students to examine their own ethical standards, thereby broadening their perspectives through these conversations.
How-To
As the instructor, it is entirely up to you how to implement these case studies into your curriculum or class activities. Montreat College has successfully integrated similar case studies into our classes, challenging our students to wrestle with the scenarios presented, explore various alternatives, and ultimately recommend a course of action along with their rationale.
We guide our students through a four-step ethical decision-making process, which is also covered in greater depth in micromodule 10 of the Professionalism & Ethics Course, to help structure their responses. While this process has been effective for us, you are free to utilize other ethical reasoning methods that align with your teaching style, objectives, or expectations. The 4-step ethical decision-making process used at Montreat is outlined as follows:
- Get the Facts
- We encourage students to ask questions, hear both sides of the story, and remove non-important information
- Define the Problem
- Students must define the core problem, as opposed to what was simply stated
- For example, a verbal conflict between coworkers may seem trivial on the surface, but the underlying problem might be one coworker feeling undervalued or marginalized.
- Evaluate Alternatives
- Students weigh various alternatives, listing and explaining them along with their rationale for why each is a potential solution
- Choose and Act Responsibly
- Finally, students restate the true problem, provide the facts, and explain the appropriate resolution going forward
- Students are encouraged to consider potential negative consequences, as not every solution will be completely positive, but may be necessary for progress.
While students often present their findings in written case study papers, you may find that allowing them to present or discuss their approaches and resolutions can be equally or even more beneficial. It is also common for students to reference specific ethical theories in their rationale for addressing these issues. Micromodule 10 discusses various approaches to ethics, including:
- Virtue/Character
- Rule/Deontological
- Consequentialist/Teleological
Of course, there are many more ethical approaches that may apply to the various case studies. The goal is for students to approach these cases professionally with ethics in mind.