Helping students deal with Ethical Reasoning: The Proto-Guidelines for Ethical Practice in Mathematics as a deck of cards

Abstract

Tractenberg, Piercey, and Buell 2024 presented a list of 44 proto-Guidelines for Ethical Mathematical Practice, developed through examination of codes of ethics of adjacent disciplines and consultation with members of the mathematics community, and gave justifications for the use of these proto-Guidelines. We propose formatting the list as a deck of 44 cards and describe ways to use the cards in classes at any stage of the undergraduate mathematics program. A simple game or encounter with the cards can be used exclusively as an introduction, or the cards can be used repeatedly in order to help students move to higher levels of achievement with respect to the proto-Guidelines and ethical reasoning in general. We present, in Appendix A, a sample semester long sequence of assignments for such a purpose, with activities at various levels of Blooms taxonomy.