I recently published a paper about implicit bias and debiasing. The paper argues that implicit bias is probably associative, but that debiasing is not fully unconscious or involuntary. As with all of my papers, you can find the free preprint of the paper on my CV. Anyway, while I was working on that paper, it occurred to me that my views about implicit bias and debiasing had implications for institutions like universities. Specifically, my views implied that it should be relatively easy for education administrators, advisors, and teachers to incorporate debiasing into what they do—and no: I’m not talking about diversity trainings. I tested my prediction in my own classroom and the results were promising. Nonetheless, I wanted to hear my colleagues’ ideas about debiasing. So, I created a workshop about it. In this post, I’ll share the materials for the workshop. If your employer or your organization would like me to host this workshop, they can contact me.
1. Slides
In the workshop, I review some influential debiasing experiments and their main take-aways. I also review a case of classroom debiasing. The final part of the slides sets up a group activity and discussion. You can find the slides below.
Workshop participants also receive a handout. The handout includes the major points from the slides, references, materials for the group activity/discussion, and a tool for evaluating courses’ inclusivity and diversity. You can find the handout below. You can find the PDF of the handout here.
3. Sample Syllabi
The workshop activity and discussion centers around a couple course syllabi. They are Philosophy of Science courses in order to be relevant to both the arts and the sciences. Of course, you can use any syllabi—or other materials in non-academic contexts. Here are the first syllabus and the second syllabus.
Nick is a cognitive scientist at Florida State University studying reasoning, wellbeing, and willpower. Check out his blog at byrdnick.com/blog
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