Abstract:

The growing adoration of collaborative teaching demands that educators promote educational practices that ensure students are educated in an ethical environment. Ethics in collaborative educational environments prepare students to become truly autonomous, creative, and critical citizens aware of their rights and duties – fundamental issues for life and participation in the contemporary world.

Collaborative work is a complex process that requires self-controlled, disciplined, and respectful behaviour among the actors involved. It demands that individuals commit to ethical principles that rule any organised society. Whether collaborative educational practices occur in a face-to-face or online environment, there are ethical principles in the collaborative environment that are always present: fairness and equality. In group work, it is common for some students to contribute more or less than others. While it is natural for individuals to have varying levels of participation, the group needs to ensure that everyone has an equal opportunity to contribute and that all contributions are valued and recognised. Furthermore, when evaluating group projects, teachers must ensure that each student is assessed based on their efforts, not just on the final product.

Another important ethical principle in the collaborative educational environment is confidentiality. Students may share sensitive or personal information while working on group projects, and it is essential to maintain the confidentiality of this information. Teachers should communicate the importance of respecting privacy and confidentiality, and students should be trained to handle sensitive information responsibly and ethically.

Ethics is essential for good coexistence in society. It demands conceptualising the moral principles and values considering teachers' and students' cultures. As a result, students learn, become aware, and reinforce ethical, collaborative attitudes and values in school.

This reflection paper deals with ethical principles and rules in the collaborative educational environment. It is built on our personal experience, reflecting on what we have learned from these experiences. We highlight that better outcomes in the academic environment can be achieved when ethical principles such as fairness and equality are present. Moreover, we argue about the teacher's relevance in developing ethics in collaborative educational environments. Our contribution is a step towards clarifying the role of ethics in the context of collaborative education. A condition sine qua non for one's academic and professional development.

The paper is structured as follows: the first section, the introduction, presents our reflection on ethics in collaborative educational environments. Then, section 2 discusses collaborative educational environments; section 3 is about ethical principles and rules in collaborative environments; section 4 summarises the teacher's role of ethics in a collaborative environment, emphasising their significance. Finally, section 5 concludes, and the references will follow it.

Keywords:

Ethics, ethics in education, collaborative learning, collaborative environment.