Developing Community Support for Computing Ethics Teaching AssistantsIn-Person
For decades, determining how to teach computing ethics effectively to undergraduate students has been a major concern. As more universities integrate computing ethics into their curriculum, or seek to further refine existing content, who is involved in teaching computing ethics has come to include both graduate and undergraduate teaching assistants (TAs). However, the role of TAs in ethics education is not well-understood, nor are the responsibilities, challenges, and support needs that might distinguish Computing Ethics TAs (CETAs) from their peers in technical computing courses. This paper addresses this gap in two ways, drawing on qualitative and design research methods. First, by interviewing CETAs and their supervising faculty at two universities, we identified common motivations, struggles, and goals among CETAs. Second, drawing on this data, we developed and piloted a cross-institutional support network for CETAs on the messaging platform Discord. Despite challenges in the deployment of the server, our results indicate that cross-institutional online communities have the potential to assist CETAs in professional development, in expanding perspectives, and in strategies for dealing with difficult topics. Furthermore, our platform can be retooled for future use within and between computing ethics courses. We hope that our research will contribute to fostering community and support for CETAs as part of improving computing ethics curriculum writ large.
Thu 16 MarDisplayed time zone: Eastern Time (US & Canada) change
15:45 - 17:00 | Integrating Ethics in Computing EducationPapers at 701A Chair(s): Karl Schmitt Trinity Christian College | ||
15:45 25mPaper | Developing Community Support for Computing Ethics Teaching AssistantsIn-Person Papers Robert MacDonald Georgia Tech, Cass Zegura University of California Irvine, Benjamin Shapiro Georgia State University, Jason Borenstein Georgia Tech, Ellen Zegura Georgia Institute of Technology DOI | ||
16:10 25mPaper | Incorporating Ethics in Computing Courses: Barriers, Support, and Perspectives from EducatorsIn-Person Papers Jessie J. Smith University of Colorado, Boulder, Blakeley H. Payne University of Colorado, Boulder, Shamika Klassen University of Colorado, Boulder, Dylan Thomas Doyle University of Colorado, Boulder, Casey Fiesler University of Colorado Boulder DOI | ||
16:35 25mPaper | “This applies to the real world”: Student Perspectives on Integrating Ethics into a Computer Science AssignmentIn-Person Papers Julie Jarzemsky University of Colorado Boulder, Joshua Paup University of Colorado Boulder, Casey Fiesler University of Colorado Boulder DOI |