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APA Committee
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| Course Title: | Biomedical Ethics |
| Instructor: | Louisa Moon |
| Street Address: | MiraCosta College, One Barnard
Dr. Oceanside, CA 92056 |
| E-mail: | lmoon@mcc.miracosta.cc.ca.us |
| Institution (Name / Type): | MiraCosta College Two-Year College |
| Course (Level / Type): | 1st and 2nd year Lecture, Part of a team-taught learning community with a biology class |
| Hours: | 48 total, 3 per week for 17 weeks (doubled due to learning community) |
| Enrollment: | 50 |
| Last Year Taught: | 1999 |
| Pre-Requisites: | none |
| Cross-Listing: | N/A |
| Teaching Assistants: | No |
| URL to Syllabus on Web: | http://www.miracosta.cc.ca.us/home/lmoon/biomedical.html |
| Date Submitted: | 3/12/2000 |
Reflections
The link provided http://www.miracosta.cc.ca.us/home/lmoon/biomedical.html is to the general page for the course, in progress Spring Semester 2000. Click on "syllabus" to get to the syllabus specifically (http://www.miracosta.cc.ca.us/home/lmoon/syllabus.html).
The course is part of a learning community which I team teach with a biology 101, human biology course. We have attempted to stick with some of the same topics at the same times. This works, in the sense that students get more of the specifics of genetics, reproductions, functions of the kidneys, etc. from being in the two classes together. The class is less integrated than I would prefer, but that may be an artifact of their having been two separate courses in the past.
I have interspersed the ethical theory with the applied ethics, and over time I have found that best at this level. Students wax relativistic when delving too deeply into the theoretical before approaching the practical, and the more relativistic they appear before encountering the practical, the more absolutist they're likely to be when they actually encounter it.
The web enhancements give me plenty of opportunity to have students continue to learn and read outside of class, and they provide graphics and interactivity that the textbooks do not. The room has a computer, projection equipment and a link to the internet, and this provides me with the opportunity to show websites online in class. Students like the overheads online.
I use written homework in this course to demonstrate that the students are reading. It is due, typed, before I lecture on the topic. This works for me, although it is tremendously time-consuming.
In this course, I have homework, essay tests, and an oral presentation. I also have a notebook in which students write from the various ethical perspectives. In the end, however, I wish I had assigned a paper. I think students at this level desperately need to learn to write a philosophy paper (a short one) if they are to go on from here. Unfortunately, with a limit of 60 students in the class, I didn't think I could grade that many papers alone.
Comments
Some of my readings are my own, either written as papers, notes for the class, or just written as online lectures. I don't mind anyone using those, with appropriate attribution, but I would also like to be notified, if possible (just for my own interest).
Other materials I use in class are:
a) excerpts from EXTREME MEASURES - movie about man who is asked to join a group experimenting on homeless humans. The request is utilitarian, the refusal is very Kantian.
b) The movie WHOSE LIFE IS IT ANYWAY? - feature-length film in which a man fights in court to be allowed to die after becoming a paraplegic
c) The movie WHOSE KIDNEY IS IT ANYWAY? - a documentary about a man who wants to donate a second kidney to his second son with kidney disease (he donated one to his first son, already)
d) The movie MISS EVERS' BOYS - a feature-length film about the Tuskegee incident
e) PBS special on Euthanasia in Holland
and,
f) The CD-ROM on Dax Coward