Awwww, mannnn!
The first rule of good pedagogy is “steal everything good.” Steal like your that little weasel thing that Dora the Explorer cant get rid of. This goes double for syllabi. Steal it. Change it. Mod it, as the kids say.
Here’s a breakdown of my syllabus that uses Practical Bioethics: Ethics for Patients and Providers. First the course description.
Description and Learning Outcomes:
This is a junior level course that satisfies the Quincy University Writing across the Curriculum criteria and which is intended to further the goals of the Theology & Philosophy Department. More specifically, this course seeks to familiarize students with issues in contemporary bioethics and how it applies to professional medical practice. The student will identify and provide resolutions to ethical dilemmas that result from conflicts in ethical principles found in modern medicine. Students will do this by applying philosophical ethics to real world medical cases. Because so many students in 323 are pre-med or nursing majors, special attention will be paid to ethical decision making in a clinical setting. Because PHI 323 is a writing enriched course. A majority of the grade for the course will come from writing ethical analysis of actual cases in clinical bioethics consultation.
When I start my course there is usually a sea of blue hospital badges. All nursing students have to take my course. However, there are a few students who are in that class because, well, it was the only ethics course available. I assure them they do not have to know anything about medicine to do well in the course. I make sure to tell them that the person who made the highest grade ever in the course was a music major. Given the demographics, however, we are going to be talking about ethics in a clinical setting.
I also remind them that they are all but guaranteed to be in a clinical setting or have to make decisions for someone in a clinical setting and this course will make them a a better patient and a better advocate for their loved ones.
Recommended Text:
Graff, Gerald, Cathy Birkenstein, and Russell Durst. They Say, I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing (Norton, 2009).
The required text is of course Practical Bioethics: Ethics for Patients and Providers. But I recommend this book for anyone who has to do academic writing. Seriously. Get the latest edition or whatever, but get you one of these books. If there is one book I wish I had when starting grad school in philosophy, it was this one. The appendix with templates for how to disagree or agree with an author is worth the price of the book.
Instructors, if you can spare the time, and do some in class review of this book, it might lead to less headaches from the papers you get.
Grade Calculation:
Case Study I 10% (rewrite till you get at least an A- or last week of class)
Case Study II 25% (may rewrite once)
Case Study III 25 % (no rewrite)
Critical Book Review: 20%
Present and Prepared 20%
This requires some explanation. At my university, nursing majors need a writing intensive course and an ethics course. So historically, bioethics has been a writing intensive course which requires drafts and conferences. I wish it weren’t so. I am in a SLAC (small liberal arts college) and I don’t have a TA and I teach four classes (sometimes five) a semester. I can’t do conferences like it’s a freshman composition class.
The “rewrite until you get an A-)” is my way of letting students submit drafts which I give feedback on and if they are satisfied with the grade, they can let it ride. If they don’t like it, they can rewrite it. This technically fulfills the requirement for drafts without tieing up my afternoon trying to schedule 45 or so nursing students individual conferences.
“Present and Prepared”
You will be expected to have read and thought about the assigned readings before class. Your contribution to class discussion will be evaluated on the basis of the“Present and Prepared” policy. The policy works as follows: At the beginning of each class, a sign-up sheet will be passed around. If you are prepared to participate in class discussion, write your initials beside your name. If you do so, you are subject to being called upon that day. If you do not, you will not be called on. You may not check your name off after class has been in session for 10 minutes or when I have retrieved the sheet that was passed around (whichever comes first). At the end of semester, I will determine participation grade based on number of classes held/number of times the student marked prepared.
So you need to know that I stole this version of the standard participation grade from Georgetown U’s John Hasnas. He described it to me at a conference once. I’ve used it for 13 years. It’s a less evil version of the Kingsfield method of cold calling student in “The Paper Chase” which strikes fear in the heart of every law student.
Kingsfield didn’t have to worry about student evals.
One advantage of this is that I can, at a glance, see how prepared the class is that particular day. If there are no checks in the “prepared” column of the sign in, I don’t waste my time trying to be Socratic. I’ll just lecture. That’s teach them to blow off the reading! One class of me droning on and on about Dax Cowart and second order desires and they will
The number one question I get about Present and Prepared. “What happens if I’m prepared but you cancel class?” In those situations, I give everyone in class a “prepared” check.
The second most popular question: “What if I’ve read the material for today but I’m not sure I understand it?” I always encourage my students to mark “prepared” if they “understand what they don’t understand.” They don’t have to understand everything to have me call on them, as long as they understand enough to ask intelligent questions and attempt to answer intelligently.
Next substack, I’ll share with you my current list of outside reading for that critical book review. In the mean time, let me know if you have any questions or comments.