Professors face lots of decisions about what to teach and how to teach it. Here are ten of my guiding principles that I shared with the students in our graduate course: "Ethics and Professional Issues in Psychology." Most of these principles are suitable for just about any college course.
I reproduce the principles from my syllabus without commentary. See what you think:
Some Guiding Principles For Learning Professional Ethics (and Learning In General)
This is not an exhaustive list, but it does represent major values, assumptions, and applications of research findings that I try to actualize as I design and implement this course.
I have reasons for everything I do. Feel free to ask me why I'm doing what I'm doing.
- Ethics is best taught in an atmosphere of trust, support, and aspiration. Fear (of lawsuits, complaints, etc.) doesn't work as well.
- Ethics is a knowledge-based set of skills, not a personality trait.
- Ethics skills include self-reflection, application, and integration.
- Knowledge is relatively easy to attain, skills are not; skills take practice to develop.
- The only way to learn is to work at it, and the best way to do work is to play. Play means things like: (a) not worrying so much about being perfect or correct (especially at the beginning), (b) bringing positive emotions into the process, (c) trying lots of ways to approach a problem, (d) expending effort in a positive way, and (e) having a more open mind.
- Information from books and other writing is neither simple nor self-evident. Meaning comes from the active processing of information. Thus, we must construct knowledge and meaning-we cannot passively absorb them.
- Reading with the intent to learn and to write is different—and more productive—than reading with the intent to finish reading.
- Writing is a form of thinking and constructing knowledge.
- Having thoughts doesn't really matter if you cannot communicate them effectively.
- In higher education, significant learning takes place outside of class; class time can be used to practice skills and test out what we've learned.
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