Hi everyone – I’m in an interesting position of teaching ethics with TBL, being the Director of an Academic Integrity Office, as well as serving as a board member with the International Center for Academic Integrity. So, since some of you have expressed an interest in delving into this, I’ll share some of my knowledge with you (excuse the length of the posting!).

 

Unlike Jim, I’m constantly thinking of ethics in the classroom and how faculty can create a healthy ethical environment in which integrity it the norm and cheating is the exception. In fact, I would argue that, in all disciplines, it is a fundamental duty of professors to create an ethical classroom for three reasons: 1) it reinforces and supports quality teaching and learning; 2) it helps colleges and universities ensure that the degrees they confer are symbols of knowledge and abilities; and 3) it helps students develop into ethical citizens and professionals.

 

Creating an ethical classroom when using TBL is no different than creating an ethical classroom using other pedagogies. First, you must communicate integrity (e.g., talking about it, modeling it). Second, you must create space for it (e.g., reducing cheating temptations and opportunities). And third, you must infuse lessons of integrity & ethics into your teaching (no matter your discipline).

 

This is what I do to apply this “ethical classroom” concept to a TBL class, and specifically pertaining to the RATs:

1 – communicate their responsibilities and my responsibilities for upholding the fundamental values of integrity (honesty, responsibility, respect, trustworthiness, fairness, and courage) in the syllabus

2 – have the teams create a team code of ethics, including an edvice policy (which usually bans edevice use during RATs and tRATs, until all students in the class are done), at the beginning of the term (this empowers them to monitor their own behaviors)

3 – put a copyright statement on EVERYTHING I hand out or post in class (this helps get my materials down from file sharing sites and also educates students about intellectual property)

4 –  change my RAT questions every quarter (yes, this takes time, but it actually improves my knowledge of the discipline and my ability to teach the concepts)

5 - ask higher order thinking questions (rather than memorization), which actually improves student performance

6 – space students one seat apart (to reduce temptation and opportunity)

7 - collect the quizzes

 

Also, I search the interent using my name and my course often to double check on my materials being posted. Only once (in 2 years of teaching with TBL) have I seen anything from my course posted, and it was just the syllabus.

 

The key is creating this ethical classroom in which you trust and respect the students and they trust and respect you; that, along with clear standards and expectations, gets you close to 100% avoidance of distribution of class materials.

 

Please contact me directly if you’d like to follow up at all. I’d be happy to help.

Sincerely,

 

 

 

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