CATHY L. DRENNAN: So welcome everybody.

I hope you're really excited about this semester coming

up, and getting involved with teaching.

So I am Professor Cathy Drennan, a professor

here at MIT in the Chemistry and Biology Department.

And I want to start today--

so this workshop is about stereotype, stereotype threat,

wise criticism, unconscious bias.

And I want to start, because you're going to be teachers,

with telling you about my motivation

for doing this training.

I think she's a chemist.

Why is she standing up here telling us about this?

So as teachers, it's good to tell your students

about your motivation.

So what is my motivation?

Well, my motivation was-- this a story from a number of years

ago, and I was asked to attend a workshop happening

at Harvard on increasing diversity in the sciences.

And so when you went to register for this workshop

they gave you a homework assignment.

I thought that was interesting.

So my homework assignment was to go to the chemistry department

and interview all the undergraduates that

were members of underrepresented minority groups.

And I discovered at the time, this was a number of years ago,

there were two, and both of these students

had transferred very recently to other departments.

So that was not the best indication,

but the students were very interested in talking to me.

And I said, I want to hear about your experience.

I want to think about what the department could do better.

Again, this is an issue from the past.

Things are a lot better right now.

So I met with these students, and one in particular

was just really engaged with me.

They're like, yes, I want to help you figure out

what's going on, and talking about their experience,

and thought a lot about what could have been different.

And finally, came up with this thing,

and he said, I never had a TA that believed in me.

And I just thought--

I was not expecting that response.

Because I'd been working with TAs at that

point for quite some time.

And the TAs were really wonderful.

They were engaged and excited.

And I just thought, somehow the TAs--

there had been this disconnect.

And I said, well, what did the TAs say to you?

What happened?

And he thought about it and tried

to come up with an example, and then realized,

it wasn't what they said, it was what they didn't say.

And that just stuck with me.

And I thought, his TAs probably had no idea

that he was feeling this way.

Here was this kid sitting in the classroom thinking,

no one believes that I can do chemistry,

and no one else was thinking that but him, probably.

So I said, we need to talk about this.

We need to talk about how we can all

have classrooms where everyone can reach their full potential.

So that's what this training is about today.

We're going to start this discussion, how

do we create classrooms where everyone can reach

their full potential, where no one's worried, sitting in there

really worried, about what someone

might be thinking about them.

So again, as a teacher, what I'd like to do starting out

is give you the take home message.

I like to give you the take-home message,

tell you what I'm going to tell you,

tell you the thing I'm going to tell you,

and then tell you what I taught you.

So there's a little bit of teacher training mixed in

with this workshop as well.

All right, so take-home message.

So the take-home message is that understanding stereotype

threat and wise criticism is essential for being

a good mentor, supervisor, and teacher,

and helps with being a good human being, I think, as well.

So that's the message.

And you might think, OK, I'm buying in,

but I have no idea what you're talking about with stereotype

threat.

So let's go there first.

All right.

So let's look at some definitions.

First, let's look at stereotype.

So stereotype is a prevalent belief about a specific type

of individuals or a way of doing things,

which may or may not reflect reality.

So most people can think of stereotypes.

Stereotypes can be positive or negative.

Most people think of negative stereotypes,

but actually they can be positive.

So an example of a positive stereotype

is that MIT students are smart.

I've been here almost 20 years, MIT students are smart.

That's a positive stereotype.

Stereotypes can be based in truth.

That is pretty true that MIT students are smart.

What about a negative stereotype?

What is an example of a negative stereotype?

Yes?

AUDIENCE: So most people see that jocks

are dumb or not so bright.

So that's an example of negative stereotype.

CATHY L. DRENNAN: Yes, and in my experience, that's not true.

There are a lot of very athletic people--

something that some people don't know about MIT

is that most people participate in sports here.

So yeah, so a negative one.

Again, they can be positive, they can be negative,

they can be largely true, or not so true.

I also want to introduce the idea of unconscious bias,

because people are talking a lot about this.

And actually, when I started this training,

no one was talking about this term, and now it's the term.

So let's talk about that.

So it's defined as social stereotypes

about certain groups that individuals form outside

of their conscious awareness.

So in other words, they don't know that they

hold these stereotypes.

Unconscious bias.

And I think people like this term

because it's takes the pressure off.

I didn't know I have it, therefore, I'm not responsible.

It's all good.

But today, we're really getting in there,

and I feel like I've been doing this training for a while,

so I've become acutely aware of just how

many stereotypes I have.

So this is not about, oh, if it were true, freeing ourselves

of these things.

No.

It's about making ourselves aware that we have them,

and acting in such a way that we can counter the harm of it.

All right.

So stereotype threat is the perceived risk

of confirming a negative stereotype.

So say, as a female driver you do something stupid,

and have a whole bunch of men honking at you.

Right?

You're like, oh, I didn't want to let the world--

you feel pressure of doing everything perfectly,

because you don't want to play into the negative idea there.

All right.

So that's what stereotype threat is.

And I think stereotype threat is still a good term for it,

because unconscious bias threat doesn't really work.

OK, so we're back to stereotypes.

All right.

So what are we going to talk about today?

So we're going to talk more about these terms.

We're going to talk about the fact

that stereotype threat can lead to underperformance.

So I'm going to show you data to support this idea.

We're going to talk about the fact

that stereotype threat can lead to the idea

that you're being judged unfairly.

Sometimes you might be judged unfairly,

and sometimes you're not being judged unfairly,

but stereotype threat can lead to that feeling

whether or not it's true.

Everyone can be a victim of stereotype threat,

and everyone has stereotypes.

So it affects all of us.

We all hold stereotypes, we all can be

victims of stereotype threat.

This training is really for everyone in the room.

And I have to say, this is not just about gender,

it's not just about race.

It's about anything that might make us feel different,

anything that might make us feel under a microscope.

If we're different in any way from the others around us,

this can affect everybody.

So it's for everyone.

This is the bad news.

What about the good news?

There's always good news.

There's wise criticism.

So this has been shown to alleviate the negative aspects

of stereotype threat.

So what is it?

So wise criticism is criticism where you explicitly

let somebody know that they are capable,

or you believe they're capable, of a higher

level of achievement.

And there is data to suggest this goes a long way.

Again, if you can create this environment of trust,

if the individuals in your classroom

feel that you believe in them, you can criticize them--

I mean, this is important in Mentoring Lab.

Criticism is how we learn.

When we don't do well, we learn from that.

It's all healthy and good.

But we have to make sure that any criticism is delivered

in such a way that the person recognizes

that we believe in them.

Again, back to the student who never had a TA--

we need everyone to know that we believe that the person is

able to do the work.

And so, that is one way to mitigate the negative effects.

All right.

So I don't know if I told you this ahead of time,

but this is an interactive training.

So we want everyone to participate,

and think about how this has affected me or someone I know.

So what we're going to do in a minute

is you're going to pair share.

Find a group of two or three, and turn to your neighbor

and recall a time when you might have

felt judged by some superficial characteristic.

So it could be age, it could be anything.

So think about that or--

and maybe and/or, you can do both--

you are worried about confirming a negative stereotype.

So that's the assignment.

Think about it a little bit.

You'll talk to your neighbor.

I'll give you about five minutes or so.

And then we'll come back in a group,

and hopefully some of you will feel comfortable

sharing your experiences with a larger group,

and we can talk about it.

All right.

So let's take a few minutes, find someone, share a story.

AUDIENCE: So do you guys have any experiences like that?

AUDIENCE: Yeah, so I guess one of mine

that I started being really aware of when I started

grad school was that I was really worried about being

taken seriously as a scientist, if I had a meaningful hobbies

outside of work.

AUDIENCE: So I guess for me, when I came to MIT,

I was really scared by the fact that there were

few people that looked like me.

And so, that put like a lot of pressure on me,

and I felt that I had to carry a whole race on my back.

And also, I can remember one meeting

that I had with one of the professors,

and she was telling me that, I know

that you come from a small college,

and that your classmates are going

to be from Berkeley and Harvard, and so it might be

right for you at the beginning.

And I feel that really, really impacted