The december issue of JERHRE features four themes: Empirical approaches to improving Human Research Protection Programs (HRPPs) and their research ethics committees or Institutional Review Boards (IRBs). Models for considering how much, how, or whether to pay research participants. Approaches to making consent information understandable to subjects or their legally authorized representatives. Constraints that ethical or regulatory requirements place on research. The curriculum materials presented here are deliberately general so that the instructor can adapt them to any students, be they freshmen, ethics committee members, or senior investigators. Drawing on the concepts and methods presented in the eight articles that explore these four topics, some useful skills of ethical problem solving can be developed.