Campus Technology published an article about some research conducted by the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Indiana University in Bloomington that was just published in Science Advances (yes, I just gave you the link to both a summary and the actual research – don’t feel guilty if you follow the summary link). In it, the researchers demonstrated that professors who believed that their students’ abilities were fixed were much more likely to have a racial gap in final grades than professors who believed that their students’ abilities would grow in their class. This simple characteristic was the most important faculty predictor of student performance, in fact. This seems supremely intuitive in my mind, but it’s also a great reminder when you are prepping your class: if you believe that your students can grow, they are more likely to. If you don’t, they are less likely to. Let’s try to believe in our students and let them know that as we continue with the semester! Happy Teaching!
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