Thi s article presents multiple facets of a team approach to teaching and facilitating an ethics course for undergraduate human services students and a graduate ethics course for students majoring in counseling. Starting with general points, this article describes a specific, week-to-week approach to a 1-semester course, concluding with sample student evaluative comments and an experienced professor/author's processing of the experience of preparing and teaching this course for many years.
at follows is our particular approach to teaching an ethics course at the undergraduate level (Ethical and Professional Issues in Human sues in Counseling). Our purpose is to share what we do during the course of a semester, our rationale for doing what we do, and our approaches to designing the format and content for each week of the course. We also describe course objectives and a variety of methods and procedures used in reaching these objectives. We briefly look at the role of faculty modeling as a way to teach and as a means to shared learning in ethics, and we address ways of teaching ethical decision making. Most of the article concentrates on describing the structure used in our ethics courses.
From our perspective, cultivation of an ethical sense begins with students' commitment to their education in the helping professions. The way they approach their education has a bearing on the way they will approach their professional career. When they are committed to their studies on an intellectual, emotional, and behavioral level, our experience indicates that students will probably bring this enthusiasm and dedication to their total educational process and eventual professional practice.
w Services) and at the graduate level (Professional, Ethcal, and Legal Is-
Role of Facultv Modelina in Teachina Ethics
We believe that the faculty of any program in the helping professions play a major role in modeling an ethical sense. Ways in which faculty members teach their courses and relate to and supervise students have a significant impact. As Kitchener (1984) pointed out, one way of teaching students what it means to be an ethical professional is by being truthful, honest, and direct with them. Kitchener (1986) put this matter well: