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"Grading college students on quizzes given at the beginning of every class, rather than on midterms or a final exam, increases both attendance and overall performance, scientists reported Wednesday." "Testing effect" was particularly strong in students from lower-income households.

What could you do for an hour in the first year of college that would improve minority students' grades over the next three years, reduce the racial achievement gap by half and, years later, make students happier and healthier? The answer, Stanford psychologists suggest, involves an exercise to help make students feel confident they belong in college.

"My colleagues and I have called such features "stereotype threat"-the threat of being viewed through the lens of a negative stereotype, or the fear of doing something that would inadvertently confirm that stereotype. Everyone experiences stereotype threat. We are all members of some group about which negative stereotypes exist, from white males and Methodists to women and the elderly. And in a situation where one of those stereotypes applies-a man talking to women about pay equity, for example, or an aging faculty member trying to remember a number sequence in the middle of a lecture-we know that we may be judged by it."

Teachers College, Columbia University, is the oldest and largest graduate school of education in the United States, and also perennially ranked among the nation’s best. Its name notwithstanding, the College is committed to a vision of education writ large, encompassing our four core areas of expertise: health, education, leadership and psychology.

"A 2010 research report by AAUW presents compelling evidence that can help to explain this puzzle. Why So Few? Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) presents in-depth yet accessible profiles of eight key research findings that point to environmental and social barriers - including stereotypes, gender bias, and the climate of science and engineering departments in colleges and universities - that continue to block women's progress in STEM. The report also includes up-to-date statistics on girls' and women's achievement and participation in these areas and offers new ideas for what each of us can do to more fully open scientific and engineering fields to girls and women."

Intelligence, Motivation, and Intellectual Curiosity are the three pillars of intelligence, and yet, it is very fragile. "Most of my work seeks to understand and remediate race and gender gaps in educational achievement and standardized test performance. Often, the low performance of blacks in particular, but other minorities as well, gets casually chalked up to genetic or cultural differences that supposedly block acquisition of skills or values necessary for academic achievement. In sharp contrast, my students, colleagues, and I have uncovered some exciting and encouraging answers to these old questions by looking at the psychology of stigma - the way human beings respond to negative stereotypes about their racial or gender group. What we have found suggests that being targeted by well-known cultural stereotypes ("blacks are unintelligent", "girls can't do math", and so on) can be very threatening, a predicament my mentor and I called "Stereotype Threat." Stereotype threat engenders a number of interesting psychological and physiological responses, many of which interfere with intellectual performance and academic motivation. I have conducted numerous studies showing how stereotype threat depresses the standardized test performance of black, Latino, and female college students. These same studies showed how changing the testing situation (even subtly) to reduce stereotype threat, can dramatically improve standardized test scores. This work offers a far more optimistic view of race and gender gaps than the older theories that focused on poverty, culture, or genetic factors. We have found that we can do a lot to boost both achievement and the enjoyment of school by understanding and attending to these psychological processes, thereby unseating the power of stereotypes and prejudice to foil the academic aspirations of the young people who, just by virtue of being born black, brown, or female, are subjected to suspicions of inferiority.   A particular focus of m

Dr. Aronoson's talk will focus on the ways that we as individuals and as a university community might reduce the effects of stereotype threat. Aronson asserts, "We have found that we can do a lot to boost both achievement and the enjoyment of school by understanding and attending to these psychological processes." Aronson got his Ph.D. in Psychology at Princeton and currently is an Associate Professor of Psychology at NYU. His research has concentrated on"stereotype threat, and in particular the impact of well-known cultural stereotypes on the intellectual performance and academic motivation in black, Latino and female college students. You can learn more about Aronson at his website. Sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning, and African and African-American Studies at Elon, with financial support from the Fund for Excellence in the Arts and Sciences. Special thanks to Dr. Buffie Longmire Avital, Department of Psychology.

Founded in 1943, ASCD (formerly the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) is an educational leadership organization dedicated to advancing best practices and policies for the success of each learner. Our 175,000 members in 119 countries are professional educators from all levels and subject areas--superintendents, supervisors, principals, teachers, professors of education, and school board members.

"If we are serious about closing achievement gaps, we will have to move beyond the simplistic rhetoric of "It's the family," or "It's the schools," or "It's poverty"-or "It's stereotyping," for that matter. " In this article, the author argues that stereotype threat, an invisible factor, negatively impacts the performance of affected students, ranging from African American males to girls in math-oriented domains. It may account for some of the achievement gap. Stereotype threat occurs when others have negative expectations of the student's performance based on some external stereotype. The student then has to overcome the inherent negative threat, thereby facing two potential failures - actually performing poorly and the perception of performing poorly because of the stereotype. Research by the author and a colleague demonstrates that due to this additional stress and pressure, the student does more poorly precisely because he or she tries too hard in a situation in which a more relaxed concentration leads to success, particularly in high-stakes evaluations. Because stereotype threat is partly situational, the author believes that students can be taught to overcome it and that teachers and others can learn to avoid it. (WestEd)

Strategies to mitigate stereotype threat among college students.

Here is an excerpt from a new book called "Reaching and Teaching Students in Poverty: Strategies for Erasing the Opportunity Gap," by Paul C. Gorski, associate professor of integrative studies at George Mason University. The book, which draws from years of research to analyze educational practices that undercut the achievement of low-income students, is part of the Multicultural Education Series of books edited by James A. Banks and published by Teachers College Columbia University.