EPISODE 6: The ‘Breaking Bias’ Project: Helping Students Identify Bias and Understand Diverse Perspectives

The Project - A podcast by PBLWorks

In this special episode of The Project, Stanley and Laureen are virtually sitting down with a group of teachers across three high schools to discuss their joint PBL project called Breaking Bias. The goal for this project was for students to listen and learn from one another, to understand what bias is, and to better equip them to disarm bias in the future. Students shared their perspectives from three different schools in three very different areas of the country — and on top of that, during a pandemic! Joining the discussion today is Josh Baldwin, a history teacher at Liberty North High School in Liberty, Missouri; Liz Ruddell, an English teacher from Liberty North; Tara Harvey, an instructional coach also at Liberty North; Rachel Harcrow an English teacher at Young Women’s College Prep in Rochester, New York; and Samuel Texeira, a high school history teacher at the Henderson Inclusion School in Dorchester, Massachusetts.   Together, the Breaking Bias team discusses, in-depth, what the project is all about; why it was so important to connect this project across multiple schools; how they designed the project with equity in mind for students; how students have reacted to the project; and both the positives and the challenges they faced during implementation.   Key Takeaways: [:32] About today’s episode. [:55] Stanley and Laureen welcome the five guests to the podcast and they each introduce themselves. [1:49] What the Breaking Bias project is all about! [3:57] The ‘why’ behind Breaking Bias: why it was important to connect this project across schools. [5:35] Some background on Joshua and Liz. [5:48] How they designed this project with equity in mind for students (and not only just for the classroom, but society as a whole). [9:42] How the Breaking Bias team believed that this project would benefit students. [11:03] How technological tools help to support the project and how the team was able to make time to plan across schools. [12:40] How have the students reacted to the project? How has their thinking changed across the course of the project? [14:57] The team shares about some of their most positive parts of the project’s implementation as well as some of the most challenging parts of its implementation. [18:26] Now that they have completed the project, what would they have done differently? And what would they do the same? [22:36] The team offers some recommendations for teachers that want to teach PBL online after the experience of doing this project.   Mentioned in This Episode: PBLWorks The ‘Breaking Bias’ Project Flipgrid Liberty North High School Young Women’s College Prep Dr. William W. Henderson Inclusion School   Twitter Quotes (for Social Media Use):   [1:54] “The title of the project is ‘Breaking Bias,’ so we wanted to challenge our students with this idea of, 1) Identifying what bias is and understanding what it is as a concept … and then, 2) Making progress towards what [we can] do about [it] now that we know what it is.”   [7:20] “I think, … we often get afraid to talk about race. … So, one of the things we started the conversation around … was reminding students that everybody has implicit bias, whether you’re a person of color, white, man or a woman, old or young. We all carry these biases.”   [8:21] “In order to solve the problem of [inequity] we have to be honest about where we’re all coming from.”   [23:12] “PBL can still happen outside of the four walls of your classroom. And not only can it happen, but it can be truly meaningful work that goes on. So don’t think just because you don’t have your classroom to work out of that PBL can’t happen.”   [23:32] “Be flexible. Especially in an online sphere, but also be willing to try a new variety of technology even if you haven’t ever used it in your classroom.”   [24:17] “As [teachers], we have to constantly be willing to learn ourselves and put ourselves out there and model that for our students.”