Technologists can be caught flat-footed, failing to anticipate the social and moral implications of their work. How do we teach students cutting-edge technical skills while also raising their awareness of potential pitfalls before they happen? Our approach, “Agile Ethics,” brings together technical skills development through coursework with moral awareness through interactive role-plays. Agile Ethics role-plays can be plugged into any computing course, anywhere in the country or across the world. Techno-moral decision-making skills are reinforced by simulating the development of products using the tech taught in class. Moral awareness begins with foreseeing the sometimes-hidden consequences of any action (Rest, 1986; and others). In the Agile Ethics simulations, students inhabit roles on an Agile team (engineers, project managers, etc.), while others take on roles in stakeholder groups (corporate board members, tech writers, end users, etc.) to experience ethical dilemmas as they emerge in real tech work. The students make technical and design choices, then discover through successive “sprints” how they can address the moral wrongs they have caused.
Current Members
Lecturer in the University Center of Human Values
