Providing educators with "teachable moments" concerning unconscious bias
For decades, educators and lawmakers have sought to eliminate demographic-based outcome gaps in education and achievement. Despite educational policy shifts and student-focused interventions intended to help students of all backgrounds excel, the phenomenon has persisted. The continued underrepresentation of racial and ethnic minorities and women in technical fields demonstrates the need for new strategies that address the issue of bias in K-12 education and the STEM pipeline. To that end, researchers at the MIT Teaching Systems Lab are developing a promising new line of inquiry — a simulation-based teacher education technique designed to address unconscious bias (UB). “Up until now, the educational policies and interventions used to combat unconscious biases tend to focus on the students, not the educators, and address the consequences of unconscious bias rather than the source,” says Justin Reich, executive director of the Teaching Systems Lab. “If we can help teachers identify places where bias may unintentionally be...