View or share this material in a Google Doc: Potential Biases that Impact the Education System
Objective
To identify the biases that impact our educational system and synthesize strategies for creating a safe and just remote and hybrid learning environment.
This activity is somewhat longer than most in the modules; be prepared to allocate an hour or more on this.
Stop & Think
(Key: T — Teachers, SL — School Leaders, DL — District Leaders)
On page 23 of the NYSED’s Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Education Framework, a student expectation bullet states: “continuously learn about implicit bias, with attention to identifying and challenging your own biases, and identifying and addressing implicit bias in the school community.”
In the Now This News video, “How Racial Bias Impacts Policing, the Workplace, and Schools,” Stanford professor Jennifer Eberhardt explains how our biases impact the world our students are exposed to. She starts off by describing the difference between racism, stereotypes, prejudice, bias, and discrimination. She then talks about bias against African Americans in terms of criminality, the workplace, and in classrooms.
- Professor Eberhardt emphasizes that simply conducting an implicit bias training is not enough. What are at least five steps you can take to ensure a more equitable and bias-free remote and hybrid learning environment? (T, SL, DL)
- Reflect upon the disciplinary practices and statistics in your remote and hybrid learning environments. What steps can you take to ensure Black students are not viewed as engaging in a “pattern” of bad behavior? (T, SL)
- Reflect upon the disparities Black students are exposed to in the remote and hybrid learning environment. How can you as an educator work to curate a more equitable and bias-free environment, with regard to these disparities? (T, SL, DL)
- Professor Eberhardt describes bias as something that we have to manage rather than something we can simply get rid of. Reflect upon this statement as it applies to your remote and hybrid students. What actions do educators need to take to manage their biases? (T, SL, DL)
Collaborate
As a PLC, complete the following steps in pairs:
- Watch: Check Our Bias to Wreck Our Bias:
- Write and discuss: How can the information in this video impact your remote and hybrid learning environments?
- Scavenger hunt! Create a plan to visit one another’s remote and hybrid classrooms. This will require coordinating schedules, sharing meeting links, reviewing the lesson plan, and checking for equity and accessibility.
- Use the Potential Biases checklist (Peer Scavenger Hunt tool) to complete your scavenger hunt.
- After completing your visits, carve out time to give one another feedback and discuss your observations.
Brainstorm & Design
Now that you have visited one another’s classrooms and discussed your observations from the scavenger hunt, it is time to individually brainstorm some ideas for your instruction. How can you ensure that your remote and hybrid learning environment is a bias-free environment?
Anti-bias action from checklist
- How does the remote and hybrid learning environment uphold a culture of high expectations for all students?
- Students’ learning-style preferences may (or may not) emanate from their cultural heritage (e.g., societies that tend toward text-based vs. oral traditions). How do the teaching strategies of the remote and of the hybrid learning environment reflect a variety of learning styles (i.e., visual, auditory, and kinesthetic)?
- How does the remote and hybrid instruction support an understanding of multiple perspectives, including the values, attitudes, and behaviors of all students and families? Are all of the students’ cultures and holidays celebrated?
- How do the instructional resources of the remote and hybrid learning environment represent the experiences of people of different backgrounds? Is your classroom accessible to non-English speakers?
- How does the remote and hybrid learning environment show people of different backgrounds and abilities interacting with one another?
- How is the remote and hybrid learning environment representative of different kinds of family compositions and socioeconomic groups (e.g., a single-parent household, a mixed-race family, a foster home, etc.)?
- How do the remote and hybrid learning materials and resources include images that counter existing stereotypes (e.g., a Black lawyer instead of a basketball player; a Latina architect instead of a singer)?
- How does the physical classroom portray images of people from diverse backgrounds (e.g., diverse cultures and religions, people of different ages)?