Foundations of Teaching Bioethics
- Course Number
- CHL3002H
- Series
- 3000 (Bioethics)
- Format
- Hybrid
- Course Instructor(s)
- Connie Williams
Course Description
CHL3002H is an advanced graduate course focused on fostering skills and attributes requisite for teaching bioethics across diverse audiences. This course consciously utilizes a pedagogy of solidarity (Gaztambide-Fernández, 20121) to teaching and learning bioethics, acknowledging that educational encounters transform both teacher and learner, and are inherently relational, intentional, and have an ethical imperative. No knowledge is neutral or free from relations of power, and knowledge exchange activities related to bioethics education need to be thoughtfully constructed for transformative and solidaric learning. Accordingly, “teaching bioethics” is understood as two-way knowledge exchange activities, and an inherent obligation for those engaged in any capacity with the trans-disciplinary field of bioethics. A core endeavor throughout will be critically reflecting on the questions: What does a bioethics educator want to transform their environment into through bioethics education? Why, and how?
Course Objectives
By the end of the course, students should be able to:
- identify the hidden curricula in their health care environment and opportunities for engaging with enhanced sensitivity to ethics-related issues
- gain familiarity with principles of adult learning, learning styles, and teaching modalities for engaging in bioethics education
- design a curriculum ready for implementation and evaluation that is geared toward addressing bioethical issues in their health care context
- apply bioethics concepts and theories that undergird purpose and approach in constructing a curriculum for bioethics education
- demonstrate confidence in raising ethical issues for deliberation in the context of conducting ethics educational initiatives
- engage in a critical, reflective stance in relation to the role and influence of bioethics norms, and to constantly querying their positionalities towards transformative teaching in their own professional practice
Methods of Assessment
| Learning Goals for Course | 5% |
| Curricular Goals, Objectives and Ethical Theory | 15% |
| “My practice/ workplace ethical context and its challenges”, i.e., My “hidden curriculum” | 15% |
| Teaching Workshop: – Oral Presentation – Peer Evaluation |
15% 10% |
| Final Teaching Curriculum | 40% |