INTRODUCTION

This WebQuest is intended to have learners use collaboration, creativity, and Internet resources to design and develop a presentation on Ethics and the attempt to think critically and reflectively about right and wrong, good and bad.

Congratulations, folks! 😄

You and your fellow group members have been chosen to become the critical thinkers on ethics!
Together with your group, you will design and develop answers to questions posed about ethics and dilemmas.

The presentation of the answers to the questions will be rated and the best group will receive individual prizes!

What should you do?

Let's think critically and reflectively about right and wrong, good and bad.

In this WebQuest, we are going to ask some of the most exciting and intriguing questions in life, and look for answers to the questions: What should I do? How can I distinguish good from evil? For that, let's embark on a team adventure. Sounds great, doesn't it? It is an adventure in the depths of humanity and eternal questions that people have always tried to answer. It is an attempt to think critically and reflectively about right and wrong, good and bad. Are you ready? Let's go!

But before that, here are a few things you will need to know:

TASK

The goal of this WebQuest is to help you discover what ethics is, the fundamental questions it poses, as well as trying to solve dilemmas based on values, principles and purposes.

The learners should work in groups of 5 to 10 people. Each group should research, reflect, debate and answer the following questions (please, see the “Resources” section):

1. What is ethics?
2. What are the main questions in ethics?
3. What are values, principles and purposes and how do they condition our decisions?
4. How do you respond to “Lee's dilemma”?
5. Are you able to present a dilemma that you have already faced?
6. The trolley dilemma: would you kill one person to save five? What values, principles and purposes guided your group's decision in this dilemma?
7. Will my action make the world a better place?

At the end, please prepare a .PPT presentation, Prezi (or other multimedia) to present your answers to the proposed task. Use reasons and arguments to justify your answers. Use imagination to have the greatest impact on whoever is watching your presentation. It is important to demonstrate good level of Internet and technology use.

PROCESS

This WebQuest is best to be executed in groups consisting of 5 to 10 learners.

FIRST PART - LET'S RESEARCH, DISCUSS AND THINK!

1. What is ethics?
   At this step each learner needs to use the online resources listed in this WebQuest within the “Resources” section and other that he/she might find and research what is ethics.


2. What are the main questions in ethics?
   At this step each learner needs to use the online resources for this WebQuest and research what the main questions in ethics are.


3. What are values, principles and purposes and how do they condition our decisions?
   At this step each learner needs to use the online resources for this WebQuest and research what values, principles and purposes are and how they condition our decisions.


4. How do you respond to “Lee's dilemma”?
   At this step each learner needs to use the online resources for this WebQuest and research what is “Lee's dilemma”. Subsequently, the group of students should reflect and discuss in order to find the answer to the dilemma. In order to justify the answer they must be able to present reasons and arguments.


5. Are you able to present a dilemma that you have already faced?
   At this stage, the group should try to present one or two cases of dilemmas experienced by them or known by them.


6. The trolley dilemma: would you kill one person to save five? What values, principles and purposes guided your group's decision in this dilemma?
   At this stage, the group must find an answer to the trolley dilemma: So, would you pull the lever, leading to one death but saving five lives?
   Would you push a man on to the tracks, sacrifising him in order to stop the tram and thereby saving the lives of five other people?
   The group of students should try to present arguments that justify the answer to the group's dilemma.


7. Will my action make the world a better place?
   At this stage, the group should try to conclude, through its answer to the question, what is the importance of ethics, as well as the values, principles and deposits that guide our action.

SECOND PART - LET'S PREPARE A PRESENTATION!
The group of students should prepare a rich and imaginative multimedia presentation where they would provide responses to the answers of the questions posed in the first part.

THIRD PART - LET'S MAKE A PRESENTATION!
Each group makes their oral presentation, with support of the multimedia presentation.

FOURTH PART - LET'S DEBATE!
At the end, a debate will take place to confront the different responses of each group of students with the dilemmas and their justification. At this stage, learners should discuss whether they agree with the opinion of the others presented as to why the respective leaders possess certain qualities to be such.

RESOURCES

1. What is ethics?
   https://ethics.org.au/why-were-here/what-is-ethics/
   https://youtu.be/u399XmkjeXo
2. What are the main questions in ethics?
   https://youtu.be/u399XmkjeXo
3. What are values, principles and purposes and how do they condition our decisions?
   https://youtu.be/u399XmkjeXo
4. How do you respond to “Lee's dilemma”?
   https://youtu.be/u399XmkjeXo
5. The trolley dilemma: would you kill one person to save five? What values, principles and purposes guided your group's decision in this dilemma?
   https://theconversation.com/the-trolley-dilemma-would-you-kill-one-person-to-save-five-57111
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOpf6KcWYyw
6. Will my action make the world a better place?
   https://ethics.org.au/why-were-here/what-is-ethics/
7. BBC - Ethics: Guide to moral and ethical issues
   http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/guide/ 

Evaluation of learning achievements

Learners are evaluated according to their participation and engagement in teamwork according to the learning descriptors/indicators:

WORK PRODUCED

Communication

• The learner expresses opinions, ideas and facts;
• The learner argues and debates his ideas and those of others.

Knowledge/reproduction

• The learner provides evidence to know the treated subject.

Commitment / Involvement

• The learner is responsibly engaged in learning through WebQuest;
• The learner applies knowledge in a contextualized way.

WORK DEVELOPMENT

Respect for the difference of the other

• The learner recognizes and considers different opinions;
• The learner Interacts with others, revealing a sense of cooperation and mutual aid;
• The learner actively participates in moments of sharing and manifesting a critical sense.

 Respect the difference of the other

• The learner recognizes and considers different opinions;
• The learner interacts with others, revealing a sense of cooperation and mutual assistance;
• The learner actively participates in moments of sharing and expresses a critical sense.

 Research

- The student researches, selects and organizes information in a deep and critical way.

In this section we will not dive very deep into the underlying educational theories about evaluation and testing: there’s too much out there than we could possibly cover in this small project report.

Instead, we want to concentrate on procedures that enable both students/pupils and their teachers to establish if the learning goals of the Webquest were achieved and, if so, to what extent. We recommend teachers make use of a combined evaluation procedure, that consists of:

1. Statements by learners (after being asked to do so)
   • telling what they learned about the subject (knowledge-oriented self-evaluation): now (after going through the Webquest) I know that …
   • telling what he/she learned about herself/himself (formative evaluation, in this case, diagnostic self-evaluation): now (after going through the Webquest) I know about myself that I …
     This pair of basic statements add up to a so-called learner report, in which the pupil/student reflects on what the Webquest brought him/her in terms of acquired knowledge and new personal views and attitudes concerning the subject.

   For instance:

   • ‘I learned that in medieval times the hygiene of people was hardly a concern which helped to let epidemic diseases like the Plague cause so many casualties’ Or:
   • ‘I learned the facts and I know the earth is warming, but I cannot understand why people were so stupid to pollute the world and let it warm up so much.
   • ‘I learned from the information about diseases that this subject is more appealing to me than I would expect in advance: maybe I should consider a medical career’. Or:
     ‘The Webquests confirms what I thought already: I could not care less about the climate and global warming. In fact, I thought it was all a hoax and I still do!’

   This kind of assessment seems more subjective than it actually is: in his standard work on testing and evaluation (and much more), simply called Methodology (1974), Prof. A.D. de Groot described how consistent the student’s self-evaluations appeared to be: when asked again after 5 or 10 years, their evaluation would almost be the same. De Groot advised teachers to use the learner report as a start for joint evaluations, striving for consensus between teacher and student/pupil about the learning outcomes and their value for the learner, but also compared with the learning objectives as stated in the curriculum.

2. The learning achievements are visible in the output produced by the students: it is physical evidence: reports, answers to questions asked in the Webquest, presentations, and performance during presentations (preferably recorded). The teacher completes an evaluation grid stating clearly what the learning outcomes for the student/pupil are. The categories in the grid can be modified by the teacher to cover more precisely the content of a Webquest.

   >We advise teachers to use the grid to start a joint evaluation discussion, aiming at consensus or at least understanding between the teacher and the student/pupil about the learning outcomes: were they achieved (as planned in the curriculum and communicated before the Webquest started) and to what extent? To communicate the learning goals clearly before any learning activity starts, is a transparency requirement that is widely acknowledged in the educational community. The history of making learning objectives explicit goes back to the evaluation ‘Bible’ by Bloom, Hastings and Madaus: ‘Handbook on formative and summative evaluation of student learning’ (1971), a standard work that also served as inspiration for the earlier mentioned Prof. De Groot.

The procedure also applies when students/pupils have worked together on a Webquest. The teacher will ask questions about individual contributions: ‘What did you find? What part did you write? How did you find the illustrations? Who made  the final presentation?’

All the evidence (of learning efforts and outcomes plus joint evaluations) is preferably stored in the learning portfolio of the student, or in any other suitable storage system (folders with written or printed documents, online collection of files, etcetera ).

Changes in personal points of view and feelings are harder to value and here the consensus between teacher and student/pupil about experiences during the learning process provides essential insights.

The grid below gives an example of how the evaluation of the learning process and achievements can be shaped: what kind of reactions to the Webquest does the teacher expect and how valuable are they? Is the teacher capable to explain the value or score allocated to answers or presentations given by pupils? Does the pupil/student understand the evaluation outcomes, and does he/she agree? If an agreement (consensus is not possible, it is still the teacher who decides how to value the student’s work.

Please note that the text in the grid addresses the pupil/student directly: this is important and it is in fact a prerequisite for using such an evaluation grid: it is specifically meant to enable a discussion of learning results between teacher and student and not to communicate learning achievements of learners to others who had no direct role in the Webquest.

Evaluation Grid

CONCLUSION

Skills:

• Critical thinking
• Argumentation
• Questioning
• Presentation skills
• Creative thinking
• Empathy
• Emotional intelligence
• Decision making
• Creativity
• Research

In addition, learners will:

• learn to practice team leadership through active group participation
• learn how to use their minds, their voices, and their ears to constructively engage and collaborate with others
• develop a sense of confidence and belief in themselves and their ideas
• learn how to communicate effectively (using written and spoken word, non-verbal language, electronic tools, and listening skills