CSG-Ed

Abstract

Computer science faculty have been taught to develop software, crunch through difficult math problems and generally work to be objective about how to solve a problem defined in most cases by a specification. Those who are able to excel at these tasks and continue through the more difficult and theoretical versions are most often the ones who become professors. Likely the professors of computing classes in college have never had an education course or philosophy course, never mind teaching one. The ACM 2013 guidelines not only challenge computer science professors to teach writing throughout the curriculum, but to also break with the old assumption that computing is value-neutral. This session describes a set of entry-level lesson plans for presenting and discussing three different aspects of the social impact of computing appropriate for incorporation into an entry-level general education course. Inspired by previous SIGCAS sessions on ethics in computing, the specific topics are 1) professional codes for software developers and how they relate to student value systems, 2) a single source network router case used to illustrate stakeholder identification, and 3) a very small "service" project using Wikipedia. Each of these lesson plans are presented as a separate set of learning outcomes, a basic lesson plan with tips on presenting the material, an assignment to go along with the lesson plan and a short rubric for grading the assignment. All of these lesson plans have been used multiple times with success in a college general education computing class. These lesson plans were distributed at the workshop. The lessons and accompanying materials are available from the instructor on request. A combined list of learning outcomes includes: 1) Seeing software engineering and coding as a profession with associated responsibilities and expectations, 2) Understanding the impact computing devices and components in our infrastructure have on our daily lives, including technical aspects of a network 3) Identifying stakeholders in a case study and the importance of a global perspective in policy-making, 4) Understanding the power and vulnerabilities of Wikipedia while contributing some content to this community project, 5) Writing short logical essays to convey an opinion in a convincing manner.