Abstract:

Current trend in industry is in hiring multifaceted individuals who not only are knowledgeable in technological and business aspects of industry but also be a team player and possess a strong sense of ethical values and professionalism. One practical and effective approach for introducing these subjects in already crowded curriculums is taking advantage of teachable moments that provide the opportunity for students to focus on the ethical issues. Long term projects that promote frequent interactions among students over several weeks of team activities can provide such opportunity. This study describes the observations of the author in using a blended approach in introducing teamworking and basic core ethical values of responsibilities, respect, justice, reasonableness, trust, honesty, and integrity in a capstone course in an industrial technology program. The course entails 10-week long laboratory projects by teams of 10 to 12 students. This approach can help technology-oriented programs to address the lack of a core knowledge in ethics by integration in the curriculum via any course with team project activities. An ethics exercise, sample of student work and methods of assessment of teamworking and knowledge of ethics core values are presented.

Keywords:

Teamworking, Ethics, Assessment.