Slides from a presentation given via Skype to the First International Bioethics Conference, on Teaching and Learning in Bioethics. The meeting was organised by Víctor Grífols i Lucas Foundation and held at the Universitat de Vic - Universitat Central de Catalunya in January 2019. The talk was a personal reflection on the teaching of ethics to bioscience students as it has occurred over the past 17 years or so. A back-up version of the talk (in case of technical difficulties) was recorded and is available at https://youtu.be/JS--0SDAYTk.

1. Teaching Ethics in the UK:
A Bioscience perspective
Teaching & Learning in Bioethics
Dr Chris Willmott
Dept of Molecular
and Cell Biology
cjrw2@le.ac.uk

2. Overview
• Context: geographical and disciplinary
• Evolution of bioethics teaching in UK
• Content and methodologies

3. Genetic Fingerprinting
Context: Leicester
• University of Leicester

4. Context: Leicester
• University of Leicester
Richard III

5. Bioethics is inter-disciplinary
Medicine Philosophy Law
Sociology Biology Media Studies
Bioethics

6. Context: Leicester
• University of Leicester
School of Biological Sciences
• Approx 320 students per year
• Most Bioethics teaching in Yr 2
Research Topic
• Also teach Medical students MSc
Science, Society and Responsible Research

7. Context: beyond Leicester
• Co-lead on Special Interest Group on Teaching Ethics
to Bioscience Students (2002 – present)
• Education committee for Nuffield Council on
Bioethics (2008-2015)
• School talks
• Writing

8. Writing includes
Authentic
Assessment

9. Writing includes

10. Quality Assurance Agency
UK’s independent quality board for HE
Context: QAA Benchmark
“We safeguard standards
and improve the quality of
UK higher education
wherever it is delivered
around the world. We check
that students get the higher
education they are entitled
to expect.”

11. QAA Subject Benchmark Statement for Biosciences
Three editions: 2002, 2007, 2015
Ethical implications of discipline
have been prominent in all three
versions
Context: QAA Benchmark

12. • “Students should expect to be confronted by
some of the scientific, moral and ethical questions
raised by their study subject, to consider
viewpoints other than their own, and to engage in
critical assessment and intellectual argument.
Graduates should be comfortable with dealing
with uncertainty.”
• “Recognise the moral and ethical issues of
investigations and appreciate the need for ethical
standards and professional codes of conduct.”
Context: QAA Benchmark

13. All honours graduates MUST have
“an appreciation of ethical issues and how they
underpin professional integrity and standards”
A typical honours graduate WILL be able to
“construct reasoned arguments to support their
position on the ethical and social impact of
advances in the biosciences”
Context: QAA Benchmark

14. • November 2002 – March 2003 Survey
• 47 universities (45%)
• 69% included some
ethics teaching
• 86% had ethics
teaching in Yr 2
(+/- other years)
• Majority taught only
(or mostly) by
bioscience staff
Engagement survey

15. • Core v optional?
Benchmark implies core
• Stand alone module v distributed?
Ethics module &/or within another module
• Instrumentalist v Thematic?
e.g. “working with animals” v “xenotransplantation”
• Level of programme?
Tensions in Bioethics education
http://tinyurl.com/l247m7x

16. • How much moral philosophy?
- Does a bioscientist need to know
about Kant, Bentham, etc?
- Rights/Duties & Consequences
- A framework for evaluation
• How do we assess ethical thinking?
- Temptation to assess other skills,
e.g. presentation
- Construct reasoned arguments?
- Appropriate representation of
more than one perspective?
Tensions in Bioethics education
http://tinyurl.com/mefkey9http://tinyurl.com/independentessay

17. • What?
Some aspects generic, others depend on cohort
• Who?
Bioscience staff? Non-Bioscience? Guests?
• How?
Different approaches
Tensions in Bioethics education

18. Can consider issues in three categories:
1. Research integrity
2. Biomedical ethics
3. Environmental bioethics
Ethical issues for Bioscientists

19. e.g.
responsible use of humans & human material
responsible use of animals
responsible use of GMOs
appropriate use of funding
bias/suppression of results > “confirmation bias”
fabrication, falsification, plagiarism (FFP)
sabotage
dangerous research: “dual use dilemma”
Research integrity

20. e.g.
genetics and genomics
personalised medicine
stem cell research
gene therapy & gene editing
cognitive enhancement
neuroimaging
xenotransplantation
antibiotic usage
funding of drugs in developing countries
conduct of trials with vulnerable people
Biomedical ethics

21. e.g.
GM crops
sustainable agriculture
synthetic life
biodiversity & conservation
introduced/alien species
climate change
biofuels
Environmental bioethics

22. • Lectures: Who?
• Reading: Required? Recommended?
• Videos and other media?
• Case studies
Methods for teaching bioethics

23. • Real v Fictional?
Real: News clips, News websites
Fictional: Can “tidy up” &/or seed specific points
Work best when based on real cases
• Formats?
- longer scenarios?
- open ended v structured v standard tool?
Case studies
http://tinyurl.com/n5tvz6f

24. • Promotes:
- Engagement with topic
- Higher-level skills, e.g. critical thinking
empathy
• Appropriate medium for debate about controversial
issues with legitimate divergence of viewpoint
Why Case studies are attractive

25. • Bioscience teaching disproportionately about
passing on factual content
• Although case studies are tried-and-tested method
of teaching in other contexts, this is unfamiliar
approach in Bioscience
• Students require some explanation
and/or training to maximise
benefits of this approach
Why Case studies are problematic

26. • Secondary (i.e. High school) education in the UK
does not include philosophy as a core subject
• Bioscience students do not necessarily expect to be
studying ethics in a biology degree
• Bioscience staff do not necessarily expect to be
teaching ethics in a biology degree
• Bioscience staff unlikely to have had any formal
training in ethics or philosophy
Issues: Expectations

27. • Anecdotal evidence for decline in bioethics
component within Bioscience programmes
• Momentum lost when loss of funding led to closure
of Higher Education Academy Subject Centre
• Many leading figures in teaching ethics to
bioscientists have retired
• In crowded curriculum, ethics can look like luxury
we cannot afford
The rise and fall of Bioethics?

28. • Although core teaching on Bioethics may be
declining, possible module-specific content emerging
(e.g. a lecture on ethics in a neuroscience module)
• Remember most staff have no ethics training, so this
content is likely to include little or no ethical theory
The fragmentation of Bioethics?

29. Gracias
E-mail: cjrw2@le.ac.uk
Twitter: cjrw
Slideshare: cjrw2
Blogs: www.bioethicsbytes.wordpress.com
www.biologyonthebox.wordpress.com
www.biosciencecareers.wordpress.com
www.lefthandedbiochemist.wordpress.com
¿Alguna pregunta?

30. https://youtu.be/JS--0SDAYTk

31. References
Herreid C.F. (2011) Case Study Teaching New Directions For Teaching and
Learning 126:31-40
Willmott C. (2013) Headline Bioethics: Engagement with bioethics in the news
Bioscience Education 21:3-6
Willmott C. (2014) Boxing Clever: Television as a teaching tool Times Higher
Education (28th August 2014)
Willmott C.J.R. (2015) Teaching Bioethics via the Production of Student-
generated Videos Journal of Biological Education 49:127-138
Yadav A. et al (2007) Teaching Science with Case Studies: A national survey of
faculty perceptions of the benefits and challenges of using cases Journal of
College Science Teaching 37:34-38