Faculty Mindset: A Hidden Bias That Impacts Student Success

Teaching for Student Success

Many faculty participate in professional development programs that promise increases student success and decreases in the opportunity gap. Programs that train faculty in evidence-based practices have reason to promise these outcomes. However, some faculty that go through these trainings implement theses practices, others don’t. What are the factors that underlie this choice to adopt proven practices or not? Gender? Seniority? Concern about teaching evaluations? In this episode, we discuss a hidden bias that impacts the adoption of evidence-based teaching practices: Mindset! Faculty that have a growth mindset about their students adopt evidence based practices at a higher rate than faculty that have a fixed mindset about their students. Since active learning and other student-centered teaching practices have been shown to improve student success, equity and inclusivity, understanding barriers to adoption of these practices is a critical issue. It’s a critical issue especially for the students whose performance would be positively impacted by the adoption of student centered practices. Perhaps professional development workshops related to evidence based practices should spend more time addressing faculty mindset about students so that more faculty commit to and implement active learning practices in their classes.