Abu-Odeh Desiree, Dziobek Derek, Jimenez Nathalia Torres, Barbey Christopher, Dubinsky Janet M
M.A. Program in Bioethics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455; ; Doctor of Philosophy Program, Department of Sociomedical Sciences, Columbia University, New York, NY 10032;
Graduate Program in Neuroscience, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455;
J Undergrad Neurosci Educ. 2015 Mar 15;13(2):A110-9. eCollection 2015 Spring.
The growing neuroscientific understanding of the biological basis of behaviors has profound social and ethical implications. To address the need for public awareness of the consequences of these advances, we developed an undergraduate neuroethics course, Neuroscience and Society, at the University of Minnesota. Course evolution, objectives, content, and impact are described here. To engage all students and facilitate undergraduate ethics education, this course employed daily reading, writing, and student discussion, case analysis, and team presentations with goals of fostering development of moral reasoning and judgment and introducing application of bioethical frameworks to topics raised by neuroscience. Pre- and post-course Defining Issues Test (DIT) scores and student end-of-course reflections demonstrated that course objectives for student application of bioethical frameworks to neuroethical issues were met. The active-learning, student-centered pedagogical approaches used to achieve these goals serve as a model for how to effectively teach neuroethics at the undergraduate level.
神经科学对行为生物学基础的理解不断深入，具有深远的社会和伦理意义。为满足公众对这些进展后果的认识需求，我们在明尼苏达大学开设了一门本科神经伦理学课程——《神经科学与社会》。本文描述了该课程的演变、目标、内容和影响。为了让所有学生参与进来并促进本科伦理教育，本课程采用每日阅读、写作、学生讨论、案例分析和小组展示的方式，目标是培养道德推理和判断能力，并介绍生物伦理框架在神经科学提出的主题中的应用。课程前后的界定问题测试（DIT）分数以及学生课程结束时的反思表明，课程关于学生将生物伦理框架应用于神经伦理问题的目标得以实现。用于实现这些目标的主动学习、以学生为中心的教学方法，为本科阶段有效教授神经伦理学提供了一个范例。
