Ethical Engineering: Co-Creating Classroom Innovations

Workshop Recommended citation: Chance, S. (2025). Ethical Engineering: Co-Creating Classroom Innovations. In Kangaslampi, R., Langie, G., Järvinen, H.-M., & Nagy, B. (Eds.), SEFI 53rd Annual Conference. European Society for Engineering Education (SEFI), Tampere, Finland. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17631411. This Conference Paper is brought to you for open access by the 53rd Annual Conference of the European Society for Engineering Education (SEFI) at Tampere University in Tampere, Finland. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License. ETHICAL ENGINEERING : CO-CREATING CLASSROOM INNOVATIONS S. Chance Technological University Dublin, Dublin, Ireland, 0000-0001-5598-7488 & University College London, London, UK Conference Key Areas: Engineering ethics education, Curriculum development and emerging curriculum models in engineering Keywords: Ethics, Teaching Methods, Active Learning, Curriculum Development ABSTRACT Conference attendees arrived at this workshop ready to energize their students’ learning of engineering ethics! This high-voltage, interactive workshop helped unlock the power of The Routledge International Handbook of Engineering Ethics Education (RIHEEE)—an open-source treasure trove of cutting-edge knowledge and active learning strategies. The 60-minute hands-on session has been designed for educators who want to infuse their courses with innovative, discipline-specific ethics learning methods. Through creative brainstorming and collaborative problem-solving (using a problem-based learning activity conducted in small groups), participants walk away with practical strategies for integrating ethics into their own teaching. 1 BACKGROUND AND RATIONALE This active learning workshop draws inspiration and content from The Routledge International Handbook of Engineering Ethics Education (RIHEEE), a project published by SEFI’s Special Interest Group (SIG) on Ethics in 2025. The SEFIO 2025 workshop (which the facilitator had previously offered and honed at conferences at the University of Aveiro, EDUCON, and PAEE/ALE) opened with an overview of the handbook (explaining its structure, purpose, and content), then zoomed in on teaching methods explored in the handbook to help teachers embed ethics education in fun and engaging ways. Working in groups, participants were encouraged to apply case studies (Herzog et al., 2025), projectand challengebased learning (Routhe et al., 2025), arts-based approaches (Hitt et al., 2025), and reflective and dialogical approaches (Marin et al., 2025). Teaching approaches of value-sensitive design (Gammon et al., 2025) and serviceand humanitarian- learning (Daniel et al., 2025) were also briefly described, as these are covered in the handbook. During the workshop, we assembled in groups of 3-4 for a brainstorming game where participants practiced combining ethics concepts with engineering topics using targeted active learning pedagogies. Figure 1: Our Tampere University meeting room provided an ideal environment for this active learning workshop. 2 WORKSHOP OBJECTIVES The handbook consists of six sections: (1) foundations of engineering ethics education, (2) interdisciplinary contributions to engineering ethics education, (3) ethical issues in different engineering disciplines, (4) teaching methods in engineering ethics education, (5) assessment of different aspects of engineering ethics education, and (6) accreditation and engineering ethics education. The workshop focused on applying active learning pedagogies (featured in the section on teaching methods) in various disciplines (also featured in the handbook) to enhance engineering ethics education in practice. 2.1 Target audience The workshop aimed to familiarize participants with the handbook, promote its utility for educators, and provide a platform for understanding and applying concepts from its chapters. Participants worked collaboratively to identify ethical issues and apply chosen methods to engineering modules, fostering critical discussion and planning for ethical integration. This workshop has been designed for educators wanting to energize their classrooms with more active learning approaches, and to infuse their course lessons and assignments with meaningful and ethically oriented discussions and activities. 2.2 Expected learning outcomes By participating this workshop, one should leave able to: • articulate what ethics means in the context of engineering education, • identify a range of issues relevant to engineering ethics education, • identify several active learning methods used to teach ethics in engineering, • articulate a plan for using one of the recommended teaching methods to integrate a new/additional aspect of ethics into one of the modules they teach, • critically evaluate and discuss activities proposed by others for integrating ethics using active learning methods, and • describe the ethics handbook and name some of the topics covered in it. Figure 2: Group engagement during the SEFI 2025 workshop. 3 WORKSHOP DESIGN This workshop guides participants through a fun, interactive, but structured process for curriculum development, as follows: 3.1 Handout / Scenario Following the introduction, each participant received a handout of the step-by-step plan as well as descriptions and prompts regarding each teaching method. Context: You are an engineering professor, and you’re being asked to integrate a new ethics topic (e.g., a moral dilemma, environmental or social sustainability topic, or EDI/equity, diversity, or inclusion issue) into one of the courses you teach using active learning pedagogies. Step 1: Please identify one ethics topic that you already cover in one of the modules or courses you teach. • Describe it here: • What main technique (i.e., pedagogy or andragogy) do you currently use to teach this? Do you utilize any active learning methods (as opposed to lecturebased with exam assessment) when teaching this topic? Step 2: Please identify a new ethics topic that you can integrate into a module or course you teach. If others in the room teach similar subjects, please find them and work together. Please pick one from this list and circle it: • environmental sustainability topic • social sustainability topic • equity, diversity, or inclusion (EDI) topic Step 3: Please identify an active learning technique (featured in the forthcoming handbook) that would work well for engaging students with this topic. The paragraph at the top of each of the attached pedagogy handouts may help. Please pick from this list and circle the one you it: • Case Studies • Service-Learning & Humanitarian • Arts-Based • Reflective & Dialogical Step 4: Look for inspiration in the list of things to consider (on the handout for the targeted pedagogy) and refine your plan. • What specific topic will focus on within the theme you selected in Step 2? Please describe it briefly here: • How can you use the pedagogy identified in Step 3 to facilitate learning? Step 5: We had never used this step before, but based engagement in the room, the facilitator added a new step. The promote was to please: Give your new activity a catchy name (to share with everyone for the last few minutes) Figure 3: Groups engaged in curriculum development. 3.2 Time plan This running sequence was: Table 1. Proposed time plan Run time Activity Notes 10 min Introduce the workshop and the book Whole group Scenario 05 min Step 1: identify an ethics topic that you already cover Group work: facilitators provide the teams with coaching 10 min Step 2: identify a new ethics topic that you can integrate and find (guided by the facilitator) others you can work with on the topic 05 min Step 3: select an active learning technique together 20 min Step 4: develop a plan together 10 min Step 5: summarize share the catchy name, group by group, and provide a very brief explanation; then vote for the best proposal Whole group 4 WORKSHOP RESULTS This was the first time the workshop included the request to give a name to the group’s proposal. Feedback provided by participants at the end of the session was very positive about this additional step. Participants said that it helped them crystalize the concept, and it brought an effective sense of closure to the activity. 5 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In preparing the proposal for this workshop, the facilitator used several generative AI applications (Microsoft Word, Grammarly Premium, and Claude) to check grammar and refine our delivery; however, the content reported is her own. REFERENCES Chance, S., Børsen, T., Martin, D., Tormey, R., Lennerfors, T. T., & Bombaerts, G., (Eds.). (2025). The Routledge International Handbook of Engineering Ethics Education Handbook. Routledge. 10.4324/9781003464259 Daniel, S., Yeaman, A., & Oakes, W. (2025). Ethics in service-learning and humanitarian engineering education. In S. Chance, T. Borsøn, D. Martin, R. Tormey, T. T. Lennefors, & G. Bombaerts (Eds.). International Handbook of Engineering Ethics Education. London: Routledge. Gammon, A., Zolyomi, A., Wong, R. Y., Eriksson, E., Jensen, C. G., & Nørgård, R. T. (2025). Teaching responsible engineering and design through value-sensitive design. In S. Chance, T. Borsøn, D. Martin, R. Tormey, T. T. Lennefors, & G. Bombaerts (Eds.). International Handbook of Engineering Ethics Education. London: Routledge. Herzog, C, Johri, A., & Tormey, R. (2025). Teaching ethics using case studies. In S. Chance, T. Borsøn, D. Martin, R. Tormey, T. T. Lennefors, & G. Bombaerts (Eds.). International Handbook of Engineering Ethics Education. London: Routledge. Hitt, S. J., Gillette, D. D., & Shumaker, L. E. (2025). Arts-based methods in engineering ethics education. In S. Chance, T. Borsøn, D. Martin, R. Tormey, T. T. Lennefors, & G. Bombaerts (Eds.). International Handbook of Engineering Ethics Education. London: Routledge. Marin, L., Jalali, J., Morrison, A., & Voinea, C. (2025). Reflective and dialogical approaches in engineering ethics education. In S. Chance, T. Borsøn, D. Martin, R. Tormey, T. T. Lennefors, & G. Bombaerts (Eds.). International Handbook of Engineering Ethics Education. London: Routledge. Routhe, H., Holgaard, J. E., & Kolmos, A. (2025). Embedded ethics in problem design. In S. Chance, T. Borsøn, D. Martin, R. Tormey, T. T. Lennefors, & G. Bombaerts (Eds.). International Handbook of Engineering Ethics Education. London: Routledge.