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Recognize Your Biases

Implicit bias refers to unconscious attitudes, reactions, stereotypes, and categories that affect behavior and understanding. If an educator holds implicit beliefs about how different students learn and perform which are tied to students’ identities and/or backgrounds[1], these beliefs can influence the way we teach, assess, and interact with students, causing us to exclude or elevate certain students.

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Get to know your students, their prior knowledge, and their expectations for learning. You also can also examine your own biases and try some of the activities below.

Suggested Practices

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Reflect on your own possible biases about student learning and participation. Are there certain types of students you assume will be quiet, outspoken, or eager? Do you assume that students with accents will be poor writers? What other assumptions do you make when you meet a group of students?

Ask a colleague or someone from the Chicago Center for Teaching to observe your instruction, paying attention to whom you interact with most and least.

Try using a mid-course review to ask for feedback from students to learn whether your unconscious biases manifest in your classroom interactions.

Cultivate an inclusive learning environment that embraces difference.

Develop well-defined criteria for decisions, such as grading rubrics, and ask a colleague to review samples of your grading.

Staats et al., 2017