Teaching dilemmas series: teaching with integrity

 Note: This is Part 2 in a series. If you are so inclined, I would encourage you to read the previous post and answer the poll question before reading on.

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There is a lot about teaching that I love. A lot.

I like making up assignments. It's fun to try to push myself to think of new and creative ways to have students develop the skills I think are important in a psychology degree (true fact: I do my assignments). I also like writing lectures and making slides. Deciding on what point I want to make, and then figuring out how to build up to that point, taking concepts apart to make the components clearer to students, making figures and schematics that can help students create mental schemas (did you see what I did there? ;))... that is challenging, but in a really fun way.

The thing I don't like is being responsible for making moral and ethical judgments about individual students. These are often subjective judgments that require me to hear about deeply personal circumstances that can be very uncomfortable for students to share with me. And after hearing that information, I often have to make decisions that students don't like. It sucks. I'd like to say yes to every request I get from students, but I have an ethical obligation to be fair and equitable. That means often saying no to extensions, or very late submissions, or grade bumps, or a plethora of special requests I get from students each semester.

When I want to know more about a topic, I either make it a lecture topic in one of my courses, or present it at a conference. Nothing inspires deep learning of a topic that the threat of having to publicly share what you've learned with other people! :D I am very interested in how academics make decisions about special requests or individual circumstances that are affecting students. My interest is inspired by a sincere desire to do the right thing. When confronted with these dilemmas, I am constantly asking myself, "Am I doing the right thing?". It helps immensely to know what other people are doing, what other options for resolution are out there. But it also helps to reflect on my past experiences. What decisions have I made in the past, and how did that turn out? What ethical approach did I take in that situation and why?

This post is a preamble to several upcoming posts on ethical ideologies as they apply to teaching. I have found one guy writing about this in the pedagogical literature. One guy. These decisions occupy such a huge component of my time and mental effort in the course of a semester that it seems like more pedagogical research should be out there. But no. There is just one guy. His name is Dr. Bruce Macfarlane, and the good news is that while he's an army of one, he has written very eloquently and intelligently on the topic. So I am going to take his lead and write individual posts about the different ethical positions, as described by Donelson Forsyth, and explain their application to teaching in higher education. Along the way, I will also reveal my own ethical ideology in approaching ethical dilemmas in teaching.

And of course, all of this will feed in to the conference presentation I've proposed with Dr. Suzanne Wood in Psychology at the Society of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education conference in June :D Two birds, one stone.