Overview – Project Description & Forming Your Team:
Project Description:
Throughout our course I have presented the argument that the connection between the ethical and lived experience is vital for healthy communities and individuals. There is also a need to connect our ethical sensibilities to our chosen occupation.
Your team’s project task is to find an ethical challenge, debate, dilemma, issue or case study that either displays or illustrates one of the concepts we’ve covered in class this trimester. In order to do this segment of the project well you will have to do research in scholarly journals covering medical ethics. However, because your education also includes a clinical component, you are witness to ethical concerns and challenges in many workplace situations. Feel free to discuss workplace challenges and situations, but remember to preserve patient confidentiality and privacy by using “stand-in” names for actual people.
During weeks 7-9, your project teams will be doing presentations to highlight the research you’ve completed and comparisons with ethical theories that we’ve discussed in class. There will be four kinds of evaluations associated with this project.
First, you will be evaluated on your final presentation in accordance with the Team Project Grading Rubric included in the course syllabus. This review will be performed as your team presents.
Second, you will be evaluated by your team members on your level of engagement and communication regarding project details and responsibilities. Those reviews will be averaged to give you a peer score on a scale of 1-5 (1 = low, 5 = high). I will be the only person to see those reviews and will take into account our team updates/discussions and your level of participation throughout the quarter when reviewing comments.
Third, your class members will also evaluate your team’s presentation by submitting survey forms online. They will be given choices that directly address the evaluation guidelines in the grading rubric and these reviews will comprise 5% of your final project grade.
Fourth, your participation in actively reviewing and submitting substantive comments to others teams regarding their presentations will be assessed. It is necessary to turn in a helpful review for each of the presenting teams with relevant commentary regarding the presentation on the same day that a team presents in order to receive credit for this segment of the project.
Grading for the Team Project will be distributed as follows:
- 15% assessment by Dr. Bowser based on project grading rubric contained in this syllabus,
- 5% peer group review: your team members will assess your contribution to the group privately sharing this information only with me via a confidential survey.
- 5% participation in presentation reviews: each time a group presents you are responsible for turning in a review of their performance.
- 5% student presentation reviews of your group’s presentation: your team will receive a grade (scale 1-5) of its presentation as submitted by your peers.
Week 1: Forming a Team:
On week 1 during the third segment of our class, we’ll be forming project teams. You may form a team with a minimum of 3 members, but not more than 4 members. When you have formed a team, please report to Dr. Bowser who will issue your team a number that we’ll use throughout the quarter to organize team documents and surveys. Please realize that when you choose a team, you are agreeing to the following responsibilities:
- Accountability for attending class and participating in team planning sessions each week.
- Communicating in a prompt manner with team members as needed to complete the project assignment.
- Meeting outside class, if necessary, to complete project related work. Your team can choose to meet in person, Skype, or use Google Hangouts for remote members, but everyone is responsible for participating.
- Performing all necessary research and presentation preparation to engage in productive planning sessions before class begins on any given week.
- Taking an active role in the actual presentation.
When you have formed your team, please complete the form below so that I have an accurate list of all team members and communication options.
Weeks 3 – 4
During the Week 3 team planning session your task is that, with a two paragraph proposal for your project that will be turned in on Week 4. The two paragraph should describe the following:
- The medical ethics issue your team has chosen to present.
- The ethical dilemma associated with the situation. What is the ethical challenge/dilemma/problem? As a result of your preliminary research do you believe this problem is either easy or difficult to solve?
- Describe the different positions taken by agents in the situation. Agents might include: caregivers, doctors, nurses, social workers, patients, parents or guardians.
- Find at least three short quotes from the scholarly articles that you have identified discussing this issue.
- The ethical theory, covered during our course, that you will use as a point for comparison to present this issue.
Each team will be responsible for typing a one-page proposal and turning it in before the team planning sessions during our Week 4 class. All questions about this planning session should be directed to Dr. Bowser during the team planning session of our class on Week 3.