Advances in Engineering Education - Summer 2020 - Integrating Ethics in Engineering Education through Multidisciplinary Synthesis, Collaboration, and Reflective Portfolios

Oct 15, 2026

Article presents two multidisciplinary first-year engineering courses at Colorado School of Mines designed to embed ethics across technical education through “Nature and Human Values” (NHV) and “Innovation and Discovery in Engineering, Arts, and Sciences” (IDEAS). It explains how students practice ethical reasoning using empathy, stakeholder engagement, communication of outcomes, and context-and-impact analysis supported by literary readings and case studies. Faculty collaboration and teamwork are paired with reflective portfolios to track evolving perceptions and decisions, grounded in a theory of change that couples values-sensitive analysis with engineering problem solving throughout the full design process.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages11

Reading Time28 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Nature and Human Values (NHV)

Innovation and Discovery in Engineering, Arts, and Sciences (IDEAS)

Three pedagogical tools: synthesis, collaboration, reflection

| | Ad | vances in Engineering Edu | cation | | | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | SUMMER 2020 Integrating Ethics in Engineering Education through Multidisciplinary Synthesis, Collaboration, and Reflective Portfolios SARAH JAYNE HITT New Model Institute for Technology and Engineering Hereford, UK CORTNEY E. P. HOLLES AND TONI LEFTON Colorado School of Mines Golden, CO ABSTRACT This article discusses two multidisciplinary courses created at the Colorado School of Mines that were developed to integrate ethics into the first-year engineering curriculum: “Nature and Human Values”(NHV) and “Innovation and Discovery in Engineering, Arts, and Sciences”(IDEAS) . In both NHV and IDEAS, our objectives are to meaningfully integrate personal and professional ethics within a larger context of integrating humanities and social sciences with engineering curricula. We teach students how to apply ethical reasoning in support of engineering solutions through user empathy, problem definition, stakeholder engagement, communication of outcomes, and analysis of contextsand impacts. In the process, we emphasize personal morals, professional ethics, and environmental ethics via literary readings and case studies that have a strong central narrative of engineering and / or environmental impacts. Students practice close reading and analysis, communication in many rhetorical modes, and evaluation of and reflection about the wider contexts and effects of design solutions. These practices, as well as course assessments, enable a focus on synthesis across learning outcomes. Collaboration between faculty from many disciplinary areas as well as student teamwork and group projects also supports this synthesis, and reflective portfolios encourage students to explore their ideas at different learning stages and to review their own perceptions and decisions over time. Our overall theory of change is to simultaneously infuse engineering problem solving with values-sensitive analysis and design, requiring communication skills and ethical reasoning at every step. Key words: Multidisciplinary, Reflection, Honors programs SUMMER 2020 1 ADVANCES IN ENGINEERING EDUCATION Integrating Ethics in Engineering Education through Multidisciplinary Synthesis, Collaboration, and Reflective Portfolios INTRODUCTION The Colorado School of Mines (Mines) has a long history in trying to overcome the challenges of integrating ethics into its engineering curriculum beginning over 20 years ago. The course“Nature and Human Values”(NHV) was developed in 1997 when faculty across campus realized that Mines graduates were lacking in two key areas: communication skills and ethics instruction. The Liberal Arts and International Studies Division (LAIS) – now called the Division of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences – proposed two 3-credit courses for the general engineering curriculum to address these gaps: communication / technical writing and ethics. However, the university was unwilling to relinquish valuable credit hours outside of the technical curriculum, one of the perennial problems of engineering education Grose (2013) articulates. In response, LAIS developed a 4-credit course meant to achieve the outcomes of both first-year writing and ethics courses in one semester. This challenge forced instructors to develop a unique, highly integrated course with a combined lecture / seminar format: students spent 1–2 hours per week in large group lecture of 200–320 students, where lectures on case studies, ethical codes, and moral theories were delivered by rotating subject-area experts, and then spent 2–3 hours per week in small classes of 18–22 students where they engaged in a Socratic seminar focused on discussion, peer review of writing, and critical reading and research designed to reinforce the lessons learned in lecture. Alongside the success of NHV, such as its recognition as an Exemplar in Engineering Ethics E

FAQs

What two courses does the article describe for integrating ethics into engineering education?

The article describes “Nature and Human Values” (NHV) and “Innovation and Discovery in Engineering, Arts, and Sciences” (IDEAS). Both are multidisciplinary first-year offerings at Colorado School of Mines.

How do students learn ethical reasoning in these courses?

Students apply ethical reasoning through activities such as user empathy, problem definition, stakeholder engagement, outcome communication, and analysis of contexts and impacts. Learning also uses literary readings and engineering/environment-centered case studies.

What role do collaboration and reflective portfolios play in the curriculum?

Collaboration between faculty from multiple disciplines and student teamwork supports learning synthesis across outcomes. Reflective portfolios help students revisit and refine ideas and decisions at different learning stages over time.

Oct 15, 2026

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