Influence of Law and Ethics on Professional Practice
Long gone are the days where I did all of my planning and assessment on paper, filing it neatly into different sections of my folder, then handing it to my team leader to sight and initial. My students had exercise books, that only I would see, and occasionally their parents might see from time to time. Planning, assessment, reflection, evaluations, students work etc - all pretty much constructed by one individual person.
How times have changed! Social media has changed the way I teach and the way my students learn.
“Social media offer spaces for innovative teaching in classrooms.” (Henderson et al, 2014, p 1). Texts can now be jointly constructed, more than one individual can collaboratively create work together, almost anytime, anywhere (Henderson et al, 2014)
But with all this sharing, viewing, collaborating, networking, and information at the touch of our fingertips, we need to be mindful of ethics and laws.
Educators who use social media appropriately will develop learners who will be respectful and positive in their interactions on social media.
The Code of Ethics for Certficated Teachers governs my teaching practice.
The professional interactions of teachers are governed by four fundamental principles:
- Autonomy to treat people with rights that are to be honoured and defended
- Justice to share power and prevent the abuse of power
- Responsible care to do good and minimise harm to others
- Truth to be honest with others and self.
(The Education Council Code of Ethics for Certficated Teachers)
These four principles are similar to my own teaching values:
- Respect - treat others how you want to be treated.
- Responsible - you are responsible for your own actions.
- Lifelong learner - don’t stop learning!
- Growth mindset - belief + hard work = achievement.
I really like this perspective on social media:
Social media: A Māori perspective
At our school, when the students enrol, they and their parents/caregivers must sign an ICT agreement. The ICT agreement is used to address cyber safety and support digital citizenship. Digital citizenship is intertwined in our teaching programmes. But despite this, I am still amazed at the naivety some of our students when it comes to sharing their personal information online. Regardless of how much teaching we do around the appropriate use of social media, we still have issues such as: students entering surnames and contact details online, students taking photos of others and uploading them without permission, and cyber bullying. There has been cases of weekend cyber bullying activities happening between students, that then spill out onto precious school time. One particular case involved feuding parents, arguing back and forth through their child's Facebook pages! In that particular instance, Senior Management stepped in and sorted the issue with the help of the local police constable. We are currently not a BYOD school (yet) but students are allowed to bring their phones/devices whereby they are asked to hand them into their homeroom teacher every morning. Not all teachers enforce this, so there remain issues where students are caught with their devices in class or in the playground by staff.
Where to from here?
At a staff meeting have some ethical scenarios where staff can discuss what’s happened and the best way to work through the problem.
References
Connecticut’s Teacher Education and Mentoring Program. (2012). Ethical and Professional Dilemmas for Educator: Facilitator’s Guide. Retrieved from: http://www.ctteam.org/df/resources/Module5_Manual.pdf : This guide compiles several scenarios of ethical and professional dilemmas that teachers may encounter.
Henderson, M., Auld, G., & Johnson, N. F. (2014). Ethics of Teaching with Social Media. Paper presented at the Australian Computers in Education Conference 2014, Adelaide, SA. http://acec2014.acce.edu.au/session/ethics-teaching-socialmedia
Ministry of Education. (2015). Digital technology- Safe and responsible use in school. Retrieved from: http://www.education.govt.nz/assets/Documents/School/Managing-and-supporting-students/DigitalTechnologySafeAndResponsibleUseInSchs.pdf: This is a guideline from Ministry of Education to help school understand and ensure safe and responsible use of digital technology.
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