Ethics of monitoring
Open your materials, follow the steps, then turn in your work.
Debate whether wearables and continuous monitoring help or harm patients, and defend your view.
1. Open your materials
2. Start the work
Read the prompt: Does constant health monitoring make us healthier or more anxious?
Show all 5 required steps
- Read the prompt: Does constant health monitoring make us healthier or more anxious?
- List one benefit and one harm of continuous wearable monitoring.
- Choose a side and connect it to patient autonomy.
- Argue your claim in your group with one reason and one example.
- Post a written CER with your position and reasoning.
Lost your place? Lost your place? You are building a written CER. Check that you have one benefit and one harm listed (step 2), that you picked a side and tied it to patient autonomy (step 3), then write your position with one reason and one example and post it (step 5).
Check your work before submitting
- I can weigh benefits and harms of health monitoring.
- I can defend a position with reasoning.
3. Turn in your work
DueCheck Schoology- Hand in
- Written CER (3-5 sentences) arguing whether continuous wearable monitoring helps or harms patients, with a reference to patient autonomy in the reasoning.
How to submit and name your file
Post your CER to the discussion board or hand in the written copy before leaving.
In Schoology, open your course and the assignment for this lesson. Attach your file, select Submit, and check that it appears in the submission.
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How this lesson connects
Keep using what you learned last class: Should terminally ill patients be offered medical aid in dying in order to decrease antibiotic use? Today: Continuous monitoring produces more data, but that data improves health only when someone interprets and acts on it correctly, so the benefit depends on interpretation, not on the amount of data collected.
Check you have the right sheet: the top of it prints today's portal day, Ethics of monitoring. The PLTW activity itself is in myPLTW and is not posted here.
Optional: listen or watch a unit review▸
Need help? Warm-up, timing, and directions▸
💡 Big idea: Continuous monitoring produces more data, but that data improves health only when someone interprets and acts on it correctly, so the benefit depends on interpretation, not on the amount of data collected.
- 0:00Hook: show a real smartwatch alert that turned out to be a false alarm vs. one that caught a real arrhythmia
- 0:10Introduce patient autonomy concept; contrast with beneficence (what the doctor thinks is best)
- 0:20Read the ethics prompt; list one benefit and one harm of continuous monitoring
- 0:32Small-group debate: connect position to patient autonomy
- 0:54Individual CER writing: position, evidence, reasoning
- 1:10Share two CERs; preview Tuesday bloodwork content
- • Smartwatches can now detect atrial fibrillation, track blood oxygen, and estimate sleep quality. Does that make people healthier? Or does it make them obsess over numbers that do not actually mean much?
- • This is the ethics of data. The technology exists. The question is whether using it improves patient outcomes or whether it creates anxiety, drives unnecessary medical visits, and shifts decision-making from doctors to algorithms.
- • Patient autonomy means you have the right to choose whether you are monitored. But does a patient who opts out of monitoring get worse care? That is where the tension is.
- • Pick a side and defend it. Wednesday we will work with actual longitudinal data and see what trends look like over time.
- • Patient autonomy is the right of a competent individual to make informed decisions about their own healthcare, including the decision to be monitored or not.
- • Wearable data can detect early warning signs, improve chronic disease management, and reduce emergency visits, but it can also generate false alarms and increase health anxiety.
- • Data from wearables is self-reported or algorithmically interpreted, which introduces accuracy limitations not present in clinically validated instruments.
PLTW connection and today's work
In myPLTW, open Lesson 2.1 Talk to Your Doc and go to Activity 2.1.5 Telehealth. Read the whole activity before you pick a side in today's debate.
Today's stopping point: You finished the vital-signs work on Tuesday. Today starts the clinical-data half of Lesson 2.1 Talk to Your Doc with Activity 2.1.5 Telehealth. Read it and take a position by the end of today.
PLTW activity titles identify the course connection. If your account will not open, use the posted materials for today and tell Mr. Mendoza. Do not mark an online activity complete unless you completed it.
Use the turn-in directions at the top of this page. Do not create a second submission unless your teacher asks for one.
Show another explanation or a smaller first step
Need help? Choose a starting point
Lesson resources: reading, slides, and vocabulary▸
The deck carries the prior idea forward, lets you inspect an analogy, maps the rule to biology, and ends with the same evidence decision and exit ticket used on this page.
Generated from this lesson's canonical data with a red-team citation check.
Should terminally ill patients be offered medical aid in dying in order to decrease use?
Continuous monitoring produces more data, but that data improves health only when someone interprets and acts on it correctly, so the benefit depends on interpretation, not on the amount of data collected.
A review board sorts scientific evidence, stakeholder needs, possible benefits, possible burdens, and uncertainty before choosing a policy.
- Which statements are scientific evidence?
- Which statements express a value or priority?
- Who receives the benefit and who carries the burden?
Use science to estimate consequences, then state the value judgment and tradeoff that determine the decision.
A review-board model organizes reasoning but does not make one ethical principle automatically outweigh every other principle.
- • Evidence cards map to source-backed findings.
- • Stakeholder cards map to affected people and priorities.
- • The recommendation maps to an explicit tradeoff with a named uncertainty.
Driving question: If a smartwatch pings you at 2 a.m. saying your heart rhythm looks off, has it saved your life or robbed you of sleep, and who gets to decide whether you keep wearing it?
What you already know: Should terminally ill patients be offered medical aid in dying in order to decrease use?
New idea: Continuous monitoring produces more data, but that data improves health only when someone interprets and acts on it correctly, so the benefit depends on interpretation, not on the amount of data collected.
Visual or model: F1. F1. A lesson illustration or teaching diagram for Ethics of monitoring. Use it with E1-E3; it is a model or context image, not experimental or patient data. What to notice: Trace the labeled observation or evidence sequence before choosing an explanation.
- Observe or measure the relevant feature in ethics of monitoring.
- Organize the observation with a stable evidence ID.
- Apply this rule: Use science to estimate consequences, then state the value judgment and tradeoff that determine the decision.
- Choose the option the evidence supports and state the limit of the conclusion.
Real biomedical example: If a smartwatch pings you at 2 a.m. saying your heart rhythm looks off, has it saved your life or robbed you of sleep, and who gets to decide whether you keep wearing it?
What the evidence supports: E1-E3 and F1 support the daily take-home when the response meets the stated success criteria.
What it cannot prove: The package does not support claims beyond this lesson's or any real patient diagnosis.
- • : The amount of sugar dissolved in the blood, the body's main fuel, normally about 70 to 99 mg/dL when fasting and tightly controlled by .
- • : A waxy, fat-like substance that the body uses to build cell membranes and make hormones, but too much in the blood can clog arteries.
- • : Anything that raises a person's chance of developing a disease, such as smoking, family history, or high , without guaranteeing it.
- • telehealth: Delivering healthcare remotely using video calls, phone, or digital tools so patients and providers can connect without being in the same place.
- • wearable: A small electronic device worn on the body that continuously senses and records health data such as heart rate, steps, or oxygen level.
- • monitoring: The ongoing measurement of a patient's vital signs or condition over time to track changes and catch problems early.
- • : The span of values for a lab test or measurement seen in healthy people, used as a reference to flag results that may signal a problem.
Use it now: Choose one decision option. Cite E1 and E3, then explain how the rule connects the evidence to your choice.
Go further, optional: The source links below are optional enrichment. Every fact required for today's local evidence decision appears in this lesson package.
A defensible biomedical decision separates scientific evidence from value judgments, identifies who may benefit or be burdened, and states the uncertainty and tradeoffs that remain.
Limit: Scientific evidence can inform the options and likely consequences, but it cannot choose a single value-neutral answer.
Use science to estimate consequences, then state the value judgment and tradeoff that determine the decision.
Limit: A review-board model organizes reasoning but does not make one ethical principle automatically outweigh every other principle.
You can weigh benefits and harms of health monitoring.
Limit: E3 defines the classroom product or success criterion. It is not independent scientific evidence and cannot justify a clinical or causal claim.
PLTW-PBT-2026-10-16 · Simulated classroom evidence scenario
Your role: biomedical investigator
Decision: Your team must decide what the evidence from ethics of monitoring supports before submitting the claim-evidence-reasoning response named on today's page.
- • Conclude the classmate has a disease, because 104 sits outside the while 96 stays inside it.
- • Hold the comparison until we know the lab's measurement error for glucose, since 8 mg/dL may sit inside it.
- • Flag the 104 as above the , then repeat the test, because ranges catch disease early.
Response: State one choice, cite at least two evidence IDs, explain the rule that connects them, and add one limitation. Submit it as the claim-evidence-reasoning response.
Claim ceiling: Today's evidence supports a classroom claim about ethics of monitoring. It cannot prove causation, diagnose a real patient, or justify action outside this room.
Reason for review: Your team must decide what the evidence from ethics of monitoring supports before submitting the claim-evidence-reasoning response named on today's page.
Context: More data is not the same as better care; data only helps when someone interprets it correctly and acts on it, and the patient always has the right to decide whether to be monitored at all.
- • T1: Read the prompt: Does constant health monitoring make us healthier or more anxious?
- • T2: List one benefit and one harm of continuous wearable monitoring.
- • T3: Choose a side and connect it to patient autonomy.
- • T4: Argue your claim in your group with one reason and one example.
- • T5: Post a written CER with your position and reasoning.
- • E1: A defensible biomedical decision separates scientific evidence from value judgments, identifies who may benefit or be burdened, and states the uncertainty and tradeoffs that remain.
- • E2: Use science to estimate consequences, then state the value judgment and tradeoff that determine the decision.
- • E3: You can weigh benefits and harms of health monitoring.
Measurements: Use only the measurements, units, graph, or counts supplied in today's task. No additional patient measurement is implied.
Figure finding: Teaching diagram for Ethics of monitoring. Trace the labeled observation or evidence sequence before choosing an explanation. This is a teaching model, not patient or experimental data.
Uncertainty: This is a composite classroom scenario. Missing history, measurements, or confirmation tests remain unknown and limit the conclusion.
Mean = sum of values / number of values. Median = middle ordered value. Range = maximum - minimum.
For 2, 4, 4, and 10: mean = 20 / 4 = 5, median = 4, and range = 10 - 2 = 8.
Mean, median, and range keep the measurement unit. Order the values before finding the median.
Calculate the requested summary for today's supplied values, then write what it reveals and what it hides.
Students often think Students assume that because a wearable produces a number, that number is as trustworthy as a hospital lab test.. The trap: Wearable data is estimated by an algorithm from sensors on your skin, not measured in a validated lab, so it can be wrong; treating a watch reading as clinical truth can lead to false alarms or false comfort.
Claim: A home blood glucose monitor that automatically uploads readings to a patient's care team helps patients more than it harms them, but only when the patient gives informed consent to that data sharing.\n\nEvidence: Automatic uploading lets a nurse or doctor spot dangerous highs and lows between visits and adjust insulin sooner, which can prevent emergencies for people with diabetes. The same feature also sends a stream of personal health data outside the home, where it could be seen by more people than the patient expects or used in ways the patient never agreed to.\n\nReasoning: The deciding factor is informed consent, which means the patient understands what data is collected, who can see it, and how it will be used before agreeing to share it. If the patient knows those terms and still chooses to share, the benefit of faster medical response outweighs the loss of some privacy. A limitation is that uploaded readings are only numbers without context, so a sudden low value could reflect a device error rather than a real emergency. Because of this, the care team should confirm an unusual reading with the patient before changing treatment.
This model shows the level of evidence and organization needed to complete: A short written argument taking a side on whether a home blood glucose monitor that automatically shares readings with a care team helps or harms patients, with the reasoning grounded in informed consent and data privacy.
- Write one defensible claim.
- Choose specific evidence that supports the claim.
- Explain the scientific rule that connects the evidence to the claim.
Keep the structure. Replace the question, facts, measurements, and evidence. Then recheck units, vocabulary, and whether the conclusion goes beyond the evidence.
Also due today: Post the CER to Schoology discussion or hand in the written copy before leaving.
- CER:
- Claim, Evidence, Reasoning: make a claim, back it with evidence, explain your reasoning.
- SOP:
- Standard Operating Procedure, the exact steps to follow (especially in a lab).
- Tracker:
- Your PLTW progress log where you record completed evidence.
- myPLTW:
- The PLTW course site where you do the online activities. Find it in Clever with your Microsoft sign-in, right next to Schoology.
Tap the speaker to hear a term. Add two of these to your notebook glossary with a definition and an example in your own words.
Pick just 2 or 3 words from today and make them yours: write what each one means in your own words, name the context clue or evidence that helped, then give one example from what you actually did in Ethics of monitoring. Try your own words first; the glossary is there if you get stuck. This is voluntary and counts as extra credit, so keep it short.
Saved on this device. Show Mr. Mendoza or add these to your notebook glossary to claim the extra credit.
Hand-picked readings and interactives for this lesson, from authoritative open organizations and PLTW's own public course outline.
Practice: try a question, then check your answer▸
Claim ceiling for this check: Today's evidence supports a classroom claim about ethics of monitoring. It cannot prove causation, diagnose a real patient, or justify action outside this room.
A smartwatch says your resting heart rhythm looks abnormal, but your doctor's EKG comes back completely normal. Why might the watch and the EKG disagree?
Write an answer and pick a confidence to unlock the key.
Fast retrieval with instant answers, not the commit-then-reveal check above. Try each from memory first: write what you remember about the earlier units, then check yourself here.
Missed class or ready for more?▸
What today's skills lead to. These are real health-science careers this course builds toward. Tap one to see, on the US Department of Labor's O*NET site, what the job actually involves, what it pays, and how fast it is growing.
Watch the recorded monitoring-ethics prompt and post a written CER on whether continuous wearable monitoring helps or harms patients.
John Carroll Philosophy for ChildrenPost your CER to the discussion board or hand in the written copy before leaving.
Class still runs. Complete the online activity above (it's self-guided). Need the concept taught without a teacher? Use this authoritative explainer:
MedlinePlus: Laboratory Tests- CompleteEvery required part of the artifact is present, nothing left blank.
- AccurateThe science and the data are correct and match the evidence.
- Scientific reasoningYou explain your claim with evidence and reasoning (CER), not just an answer.
- Professional communicationClear, organized, labeled, and written the way a clinician or scientist would.
- SubmittedGo to Schoology to turn this in. Submit one PDF. Put your first and last name in the document header. Name the file: FirstName LastName - Assignment Title - YYYY-MM-DD.pdf. If you cannot get in, see Mr. Mendoza. Do not skip the work.
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