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