bias-critique.md

Critiquing Bias: Discussion

If you've never facilitated an article jigsaw before, consider asking an English teacher at your school how they prefer to do it. The recommendations here are general, and if your students already have exposure to one way of doing an article jigsaw, you may want to repeat that procedure rather than pioneering a new one.

Launch

Consider the following statement:

It's impossible to be unbiased.

• Do you agree or disagree?
• Why do you think the way you do?
• Discuss as a class.

Jigsaw

Today you'll each choose one of 5 excerpts (each is approximately the same length), and you'll critique the text for sources of subconscious and unintentional bias. Your critique should consider both what the article is about and how the article was written and the language that was used.

1. Split into groups of 4-5 students.

2. Appoint one student to be the group representative.

3. Each student in the group should choose a different excerpt from the list below to critique and present.

   • Machine Bias (ProPublica)
   • The Economic Impact of School Suspensions (The Atlantic)
   • Siri and Alexa Reinforce Gender Bias, U.N. Finds (New York Times)
   • MIT Researcher Exposing Bias in Facial Recognition Tech Triggers Amazon's Wrath (Insurance Journal)
   • When It Comes to Gorillas, Google Photos Remains Blind (Wired)

4. Read over the excerpt you chose. Then read over the excerpt again. (You don't need to memorize it; you're just getting a good understanding of the article.)

5. For each article, form an "expert group" of all students who chose the same article.

6. In your "expert group", discuss the main points of the excerpt. As a group, critique the text for sources of subconscious and unintentional bias.

7. Return to your original group and present back to the group what you discussed in your "expert group". Describe the excerpt, the sources of bias, and anything else you found interesting. Group members are encouraged to ask questions.

8. As a group, identify two to three commonalities among the article excerpts to present back to the class. Consider how each commonality is supported by the set of articles.

9. Each group representative should share one (unique) commonality back to the class and explain how the set of articles supports it.

Close

Consider the following statement:

All technology has the biases of its creators.

• How does this statement relate to the articles you discussed today?
• We understand that content like books and articles can demonstrate bias - how is technological bias different from or similar to that type of bias?
• Do you agree or disagree with the statement? Why?