Stimulating the learning of Ethics and Critical Thinking: A class given by students, for students

Abstract

This paper presents the results of the work developed by two teams that were challenged to give a lecture to theirs peers about critical thinking and ethics in the context of an elective course. This elective course is running for the second year and it is offered to all students in a Portuguese university. The main idea of this course is to stimulate students to learn about contents normally not approached in their compulsory courses. This course is called 'Preparing Generation Z: beyond technologies (Z-Tec)'. Themes discussed in the classes are related with personal skills such as critical thinking, communication, leadership, teamwork as well as ethics or even more practical themes like CV design or job interviews behavior. Such competencies could be the key factor for differentiation in a technological career. In Z-Tec classes active learning methodologies (e.g. practical exercises, debates, seminars and reflective activities) and teamwork are used. Each team must develop/discuss a topic chosen by them and lecture it on the class. From the six teams, two discussed critical thinking and ethics and the creative way they approached these both themes is presented in this paper. Presenting this, the authors want to show that with the right stimulus, students are capable to teach and learn with their peers.