STUDENT TO WORLD: Overcoming Bias
Learn how biases are formed and how they can overcome them in themselves and question them in others.
Student to World: Overcoming Bias creates personalized learning journeys for youth to explore how biases are formed and how they can overcome them in themselves and question them in others. Through activities, media resources, and authentic global youth stories, youth learn to reflect on their own assumptions, explore the biases they encounter in their communities and in the media, and create an action plan for addressing bias personally and in their communities.
In this interactive program teens shape their own learning experience – they set the pace, decide when and where they engage, and make choices about the content that appeals to them
most. This course allows teens to
- Learn key concepts through short, structured, engaging, and highly visual lessons
- Expand their global perspective by exploring carefully selected videos and articles related to global hunger
- Exchange stories with their global peers to deepen their understanding of one another and explore their similarities and differences
- Contribute to their local and global communities by developing a plan for local actions that can achieve positive global impact
- *Add-on interactive activities available to select at registration
Due to the generosity of our funding partners, our Student to World programs are FREE. Sign up today!

- Ages: 13-19
- Self-directed: Teens navigate independently, selecting themes and resources of interest to them

- Content-rich: 6-8 hours of engaging resources and creative activities for each theme
- Flexible: Start and stop anytime

- Online: Mobile, tablet, desktop
- Safe: Private, secure platform
Program breakdown
Aligns with History, Social Studies, and English courses
Course modules:
- #EverydayBookCovers: Teens explore and share stories about a time they made an assumption about someone based on information they chose to focus on, that they later realized was wrong.
- #EverydayLocalContact: Teens explore and share stories about a specific moment where something they learned challenged their bias about someone who is different than them.
- #EverydayGlobalDiversity: Teens explore and share stories find a news article or other piece of media about another country. Students write a script of an imagined conversation between them and someone from another country.
- #EverydayAction: Teens commit to taking action by designing a SMARTIE Goal to interrupt bias in themselves or others.
Learning objectives:
- Participants will consider the aspects of a person that they pay attention to when they meet a new person.
- Learn the differences between selection bias and confirmation bias.
- Learn about the Ladder of Inference and explore the ways they go up the Ladder of Inference.
- Consider who they frequently come into contact with in their local communities and who they’ve been taught to trust and fear.
- Know how stories help us connect to one another across distance and difference.
- Discover how diverse their universe is through an activity.
- Learn about implicit biases.
- Consider media representation and the media’s influences on their everyday lives.
- Examine media bias and the ways that it can influence their perceptions of others.
- Learn how to interrupt and confront bias in themselves and others.
Course components:
- Mini-lessons
- Video content
- Learning checks
- Audio narration
- Youth narration
- Story Share assignments
- Global repository of stories
This course aligns to:
- United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals
- Asia Society Global Competencies
- 21st Century Skills
- CASEL’s Social Emotional Learning
Why Storytelling?
“Everything – faith, science, love – needs a story for people to find it plausible.”
-Adam Gopnick, The New Yorker.
In order for youth to find each other’s lives plausible, Student to World leverages the power of storytelling. Rather than have global youth share opinions and information about themselves with one another, we engage them in sharing stories with one another.
The stories are often brief, yet impactful, revealing deep truths through small moments, bringing social issues to life through day-to-day realities a deep-rooted global issue.
The power of storytelling for enduring learning–in which students retain the information they learn beyond the classroom and course is well established in research literature in the fields of communication, cultural studies and neuroscience. The brain reacts to stories based on triggers to the neurons that evoke empathy. Stories help students connect across great distance and difference.
Standards Alignment
Aligns with History, Social Studies, and English courses
Area | Standards |
---|---|
ASIA SOCIETY GLOBAL COMPETENCIES | Investigate the world Recognize perspectives Communicate ideas Take Action |
21ST CENTURY SKILLS | Critical Thinking and Problem Solving Creativity and Innovation Information Literacy Media Literacy Technology Literacy Flexibility and Adaptability Initiative and Self-Direction Productivity and Accountability Leadership and Responsibility |
CASEL SOCIAL & EMOTIONAL LEARNING | Self Awareness Self Management Responsible Decision Making Social Awareness |
UNITED NATIONS SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS | Goal 4: Quality Education Goal 5: Gender Equality Goal 10: Reduced Inequalities Goal 16: Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions Goal 17: Helping governments and stakeholders make the SDGs a reality |