Teaching sustainability, ethics and scientific writing : An integrated approach

• This Innovative Practice Full Paper presents an approach to integrate three critical elements in Computer Science education.The call to imbue computer science graduates with strategic skills needed to address our pressing global sustainability challenges is extremely important, and a great challenge to degree programmes in computer science and software engineering. Doing this successfully requires great care, and possibly several iterations across an entire curriculum. In this regard, learning for sustainability faces similar challenges as understanding scientific results and ethics. Improving skills in searching for, reading, and producing academic texts are often neglected, as are skills in understanding ethics; what norms and values that guide our choices of methods for solving problems. To handle the fact that these subjects (academic writing, ethics and sustainability) are treated separately, and thereby lowering student engagement with the topics, we have successfully integrated them into one coherent subject of Professionalism in Computer Science. By integrating the three subjects, we do three things: a) describe a multi-faceted but integrated engineering role; b) integrate the three aspects of the role we focus on in education and steer away from the view that these are add-ons; and c) increase the motivation of students to take on these aspects of the engineering role.Our approach uses a flipped-classroom style with students playing educational games, participating in discussion seminars and conducting critical analyses of other students’ choices in IT system design. Much emphasis is on the students academic writing abilities, including critical information search and a student peer-review procedure. Also, we do this using an integrated assessment format where teachers from different disciplinary backgrounds jointly assess material from students, which stimulates discussions among ourselves about what and how to assess, and provides a practical way to integrate assessments. We present results from attitude surveys, course evaluations and the contents of the students’ analyses in their final essays. In conclusion, our approach demonstrates a clear shift in how students perceive sustainability, showing that it is possible to achieve changes in attitude towards the subjects as such and their importance for computer scientists.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap -- Lärande (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Educational Sciences -- Learning (hsv//eng)

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