“You Should Think About Teaching. You’re Really Good at it”: Instructors' Starting Points for Teaching Minoritized Students

Few college instructors receive pedagogical training, yet they enter the classroom with experience and knowledge that informs the way they think about their capacity to teach. The starting point of the faculty teaching journey is often a neglected aspect of the educational development literature. This case study examines where and how 10 U.S. college instructors developed their beliefs about their capacity for college-level teaching generally, and particularly their confidence in equity-based teaching. We found that college instructors generally lacked first-hand experience teaching in diverse classrooms, so drew on other types of diversity to inform their equity-based teaching. The college instructors received feedback on their general teaching from multiple sources, which was valuable. Feedback on their equity-based teaching came mostly from students but was often limited or negative. We also found variations in where and how the instructors developed their beliefs about their capacity for equity-based teaching by discipline and gender. Considering the starting points of college instructors’ beliefs about their capacity to teach, especially in equity-based ways, has implications for educational developers in reducing barriers and developing programs to increase instructors’ confidence.