In an era of perceived social polarisation and growing awareness of environmental crises, previous moral certainties are being re-evaluated. There is a need to reaffirm and understand shared moral foundations and to justify courses of action to respond to the challenges ahead. This is also a challenge for ethics teaching at universities. Courses are becoming increasingly diverse, bringing together students with different values, educational backgrounds, and cultural identities. The aim is to strengthen students' ethical competence, create space for in-depth exploration of moral issues, stimulate ethical decision-making and communication processes, and engage students in their use of media. Students should be encouraged to deal with controversial issues in their disciplines, as well as in their future fields of work and action, and to be able to argue their case.
The International Centre for Ethics in the Sciences and Humanities (IZEW) has been offering courses in ethics for 30 years and has gained experience in interdisciplinary ethics education. Before students can engage in discussions about specific challenges in science and society, they must first become familiar with the terminology (ethical vocabulary) and methods of ethical judgement (ethical grammar). It turns out that the face-to-face phases of seminars are ideal for direct interaction and discussion, but less so for learning ›vocabulary and grammar‹.
The project develops medially sophisticated and appealing teaching and learning units (on the practical significance of ethical reflection, fundamental ethical approaches, and ethical argumentation), in which students can learn 'vocabulary and grammar' at their own pace in self-study using flipped learning before entering the face-to-face phases of the courses. The modules are designed to be used in interdisciplinary teaching and learning contexts, i.e. they are aimed at students who have little or no experience of forms of ethical study. Ideally, they will also appeal to lecturers who are interested in ethical issues but have no background in philosophy. Flipped learning concepts can only be successful if learners are actually prepared and have the opportunity to test their understanding. Flipped learning requires students to design and rethink the learning process themselves. This requires both reflective (problem-oriented) and reflexive (self-oriented) skills. In addition, learning is a social process and requires authentic problems and opportunities for exchange. The aim is to design learning activities in such a way that face-to-face time can be used for result-oriented collaboration, questioning, discussion and the exchange of ideas, perspectives, and viewpoints. Therefore, the self-study modules need to be supplemented with media resources for specific tasks and ideas for lectures, seminars, and exercises to create the right conditions.
