Reframing Teacher Mindsets: Developing Teacher Self-Efficacy to Serve Economically Disadvantaged and Minority Students

This study sought to explore the impact of building self-efficacy in teachers on improving instructional practices to meet the diverse learning needs of economically disadvantaged and minority students. Research shows the academic achievement gap among economically disadvantaged and minority students have been historically persistent in the United States. To effectively address gaps in learning, it is necessary to target teacher mindsets, with the focus on developing a level of self-efficacy in teachers that improves their capacity to implement effective instructional strategies that meet the needs of economically disadvantaged and minority students. Through targeted professional development sessions focused on deconstructing deficit thinking and building teacher self-efficacy, and collaborative discussions around building capacity to identify and implement highly engaging and culturally responsive practices, this study focused on reframing teacher mindsets to minimize and/or eliminate the influence of implicit and explicit biases on teachers’ belief and capacity to foster equitable and inclusive classroom environments for economically disadvantaged and minority students. This study was conducted using a design-development intervention study model with embedded action research elements through the framework of self-efficacy theory to develop and design interventions. This design-development intervention study utilized professional development sessions and collaborative discussions with teachers to tailor interventions to target harmful mindsets and build capacity for implementing instructional strategies aligned with students’ learning needs to address student learning gaps. The hope was that the findings of this study showed that guiding teachers to reframe their thinking regarding teaching economically disadvantaged and minority students can help build teacher self-efficacy and capacity to improve instructional practices to effectively meet the learning needs of students.