To introduce students to ideas and approaches to creative thinking and to encourage the incorporation of the creative dimension in their formulation of alternative courses of action. This unlikely combination of topics in a single course has worked extremely well. Ethical concepts and theories are not always easy to present in ways that are interesting and effective. Formalized ethics courses taught in our philosophy department sometimes tend to be long on substance but short on actual student learning. In this course, the emphasis is on interactive leaning.
Students do a number of exercises to enhance their creative thinking skills.
Concurrently, they wrestle with marketing ethical dilemmas presented in written cases and video cases. Students are exposed to a minimum of formal lectures. Instead, they are introduced to ethical concepts and theories via relevant readings and assignments. The most dramatic evidence of student learning comes when they work in teams to design, produce, and present their own video cases to their fellow classmates. These cases reflect substantive knowledge and creative thinking.