Goal 12 – Ethical Issues in Mathematics and Computer Science

This course was very discussion-based, where we talked about the ethical concerns of various topics throughout the semester, such as the Edward Snowden case and the ethics of code-sharing. It was exciting to attend this course, since the learning agenda adjusted as new events occurred. The professor would assign three or four articles to read, to prepare for each lecture day, so that when class started, we could jump right into discussion. Occasionally, we’d have quizzes, in which we were given a situation and told to justify one side or the other based on different ethical theories, such as utilitarianism or deontology. We’d sometimes have papers to write, which were similar to the quizzes and were handed in only on paper (our professor preferred no digital hand-ins). At the end of the semester, we submitted topic ideas, chose our top three preferred platforms out of a list of approved topics, and participated in a formal, oral debate with a classmate on the opposing side. For mine, I defended the schools’ ability to remotely access the laptop computers that they provided to their students.

 

While I don’t have digital copies of my activities in the course, I do have a number of links for articles that we read and discussed in class, so I’ll attach only a few of them below: