Link to module
Evaluated December 2021
This module involves a role-playing exercise that explores how technology affects society. The specific focus is on a city hall discussion about a local police department adopting facial recognition technology. Possible controversial issues are addressed, especially associated with policing and it exposes the power structures that exist and the significant role that computing plays in maintaining those power structures.
This module covers material in Computational Science/Interactive Visualization.
Instructors adopting this module will find that it is a stand-alone module that could be used in several different standard computer science courses that emphasize image processing in some way. It is appropriate for use in a Computer Science I or Computer Science II course that takes an image processing approach. In addition, the module can be used in an upper-division standalone course on image processing or in a programming language course where there is some emphasis on the structure of the image processing parts of programming languages. The module is self-contained and could be used in many courses both inside and outside of computer science. Interdisciplinary class meetings could be created between computer science and other disciplines such as criminal justice, philosophy, political science and sociology. As created, the module will take approximately one hour, although could certainly fill a 75 or 90-minute class. Instructors will find good guidance for delivery, however, someone using this module may find it helpful to obtain background information on empathy and how fiction in general (of which the role-playing here is one find) can help develop empathy and imagination. In addition, the instructor should have at least a general sense of how city government works. This module requires that the faculty member lead students in group work and the sharing of that group work. While this module will work with students with just about any background, those with more “life experience” (e.g., having been part of any governmental body, experience with law enforcement, experience with corporate structure) will likely find this a deeper learning experience and be better positioned to explore and understand the nuances of the case.
While the goals of the module are explicitly stated, there are no assessment rubrics included with the module. If an instructor’s goal is to have students experience the analysis and decision-making process, grading may be based merely on participation. More substantive assessment will require the instructor to develop their own understanding of the module’s purpose and learning goals.
The evaluation of this module was led by Marty J. Wolf and Emanuelle Burton as part of the Mozilla Foundation Responsible Computer Science Challenge. Patrick Anderson, Judy Goldsmith, Colleen Greer, Darakhshan Mir, Jaye Nias and Evan Peck also made contributions. These works are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.