The role of cognitive biases in the classroom Michael Mills
i once had a student that i believed had
everything going for her
she was smart dressed in stylish clothes
hung out with the popular kids
i truly valued this student she was a
talented debater and won many debate
tournaments for our school
but i secretly resented her i believed
at the time
all her successes and accomplishments
were because of her economic privilege
as a child who grew up in poverty my
beliefs were limited in thinking
that such people shouldn’t really get
credit for their accomplishments because
they already had
everything going for them and at one
point in this class this student
delivered an individual debate
performance that changed my life forever
in her closing arguments she spoke of
managing ongoing struggles
she spoke of how she had lost family
members at an early age to breast cancer
and how she had to consider herself as a
high school senior
whether she would need to get a
preemptive double mastectomy to protect
her own life
is it fair to say that we’ve all made a
hasty judgment about a student at least
once in our career
so the questions become how can we then
gain rapport with a child who sees the
world through a lens we’ve never seen
through
how do we promote a classroom that
values diversity and innovation without
honoring views that are inconsistent
with our own
or considering innovations that we think
are impossible to implement
as educators i would imagine we all like
to think we are reflective
kind and empathetic toward our students
the truth is
we all have certain barriers hardwired
in our brains that keep us from fully
empathizing with others
and connecting with them in an authentic
way
and please don’t think i’m here to
chastise anyone i i just want to use a
little brain science to highlight how we
can
as individuals be more intentionally
reflective in a way
in which we usually just stop short and
this is
essential to promoting a learning
community built on
empathy and mutual understanding which i
believe and research supports
is necessary before attempting to
transform the classroom using mobile
technology
or any other innovation although our
brains are complex and powerful
and we’re capable of amazing acts of
altruism
we’re all prone to certain innate biases
that undermine
our ability to empathize and show
compassion to others
i want to talk about some of these
biases and then offer how we can best
overcome them
and that way we can better connect with
others and emulate to our students what
it means to be
patient and understanding let’s all
agree that there are times when we get
frustrated or upset with others for
failing to live up to our expectations
or standards
this is because our brains are wired in
such a way that we often fail to
consider
circumstances that may cause a person to
act in a particular way
especially if it’s a way that’s
disagreeable to us or
something that we don’t understand so
take for instance the curse of knowledge
this is an actual phenomenon in which
educated people
end up forgetting more from our
education than others have even learned
we fail to scaffold our teaching because
we assume others have a background to
understand
so when we seemingly attempt to
encourage students through a difficult
concept by saying
oh you can do this this is easy we’re
actually highlighting this lack of
awareness
of where the student or colleague is in
the process of learning
what’s easy for us it’s the outcome of
years of practice and studying we have
to remember that
this curse our cognitive bias stands in
the way of our ability
to connect with others if we don’t adopt
a beginner’s mindset ourselves
what what kind of language does a novice
learner need to understand the concept
what are the sensitivities and
frustrations a novice learner might have
and what are the insights a novice might
actually bring to a problem
and while these questions highlight the
benefits of having a beginner’s mindset
there’s actually another significant
reason why we should step back from our
perceived authority
and our expertise about 20 years ago
researchers articulated that cognitive
bias that is all too familiar
we often consider ourselves more
knowledgeable about a topic than we
really are
this is referred to as the
dunning-kruger effect and while our
students
often suffer from this it’s really us
and our overestimation of what we think
we know
that can lead to lack of willingness to
consider information we don’t understand
that includes information that may come
from our students some of whom have
experiences and insights that are well
beyond their years
not recognizing this is referred to as
fundamental attribution error
an inclination that causes us to
immediately attribute others actions to
who they are as people
and not because of their environment but
we often don’t do the same for ourselves
when someone does something we don’t
like we we tend to assign blame to some
aspect of that person
not some factor beyond their control but
when we do something similar
we often make excuses and sometimes
rationalize our behavior
so how can we expect these students to
innovate if
they can’t expect us to be flexible and
understanding
at its core your brain wants to believe
that you’re always on the right track
the problem is that’s not always the
case and because of this
your brain is preventing you from
authentically connecting
with others the problem is that we we
have a limited or narrow view of most
topics simply because of where we live
who we hang out with what our caregivers
and community have passed on to us
and who we choose to listen to and in
an ever-shrinking world in which they’re
more and more in contact with those who
are different from us
it’s critical that we tame our instinct
to believe only what makes us
comfortable
this error in judgment is insidious
because it
acts as an impediment to our ability to
truly connect with others
to consider the perspectives of others
when those perspectives conflict with
our own
long-held beliefs and i’m telling you
these relationships with our students
matter and even after many years they
never forget how you make them feel
and how you make them feel is directly
related to how motivated they will
be to learn and to innovate
we have what it takes to put into check
the parts of our brain that may dampen
our ability to show empathy and
compassion
especially to those students who may not
have that in their lives
we owe that to our students because
being a teacher means more than share in
our mind
it means sharing our heart as well thank
you