2.13 Group session – action planning

The aim of this section is to develop a plan for trying out ideas with your pupils. The learning outcomes for pupils are that at the end of the activities they will be able to:

• Understand the concept of unconscious bias
• Explore how unconscious bias and gender inequality influences perspectives and experiences of STEM subjects
• Discuss gender equality and unconscious bias, including in relation to subject choices and school experience

There is one set activity and further suggested outline activities that cover these three learning outcomes and you can download them:

Classroom Activities on unconscious bias [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)]

Working as a group (or in subgroups each with a note taker) consider each activity in turn and look at the following questions.

• Are you clear about the nature of the activity and its relationship to the learning outcomes?

• Does this work? Would you use it? Is it practical?

• What would you do about the issues it raises, during the exercise and afterwards?

• What support do you need to deal with the exercise and afterwards?

• Thinking about your pupils and your context and how you would adapt the activity? In other words take the outline and make it yours.

• Decide when you will carry out the activity and with which group.

• Decide how you will evaluate the activity. You might want to collect feedback from pupils. Or debrief with another member of the study group once the activity is complete.

You can now go to Section 3: Building STEM capital in the classroom