Workshop slides

1. Exploring your educator identity
Jordan Napier & Mandy Moffat
We’ll get started at 10.05am – while you
wait, please grab a cup of tea/coffee &
make yourself at home

2. By the end of this
session, you will be
able to:
• Reflect on your own educator identity
• Consider which metaphors/symbols you might
use to describe your identity as an educator

3. Ways of
working:
Keep muted when you’re not
talking
Put your cameras on in the
breakout rooms
Join in activities
Enjoy!

4. How would
you define
the concept
of ‘identity’?
Type here

5. Why identity?
• ’the way individuals understand themselves, interpret
experiences, present themselves and wish to be
perceived by others as well as how they are recognized
by the broader community’ (Gee, 2001).
• an onion as a metaphor of identity, in which ‘each layer
represents a different level of understanding from the
‘inner world’ to the ‘outer world’ (Mounrouxe & Poole,
2013).
• GMC Recognition of Trainers – ‘taking on the identity of
an educator, rather than seeing it as integral,
but unarticulated, part of their role’ (Burford, et al,
2019).

7. Medical students’
identities
• ‘Medical education is as much about the
development of a professional identity as it is
about knowledge learning’ (2010).

8. What about the
medical
educators?
• Teaching as being an integral part of
physician identity (Steinert & MacDonald,
2015)
• doctors who ‘see themselves as teachers’ are
more likely to enjoy it and be regarded as
effective in their roles (Starr et al, 2003)
• while medical educators’ identities as
physicians and researchers tend to be well
prescribed and supported by universities and
hospitals, their identities as teachers are not
(Lankveld et al, 2017)

9. Metaphors/symbols
– why?!
Conceptual metaphor theory states that human beings
tend to think in metaphors, i.e. we are engaged in
constant search of similarities between concepts
(Lakoff & Johnson, 1980;Karska & Prazmo, 2017).

10. Betwixt &
between

17. In your breakout rooms (10 mins):
• Consider what metaphor,
symbol, analogy you might
use to express how you see
yourself as an educator…
• What made you pick that
specific metaphor/symbol?

19. By the end of
this session, you
will be able to:
• Reflect on your own educator
identity
• Consider which metaphors you
might use to describe your
identity as an educator

20. References:
• Gee JP. Identity as an analytical lens for research in education. Rev Res Educ. 2001;25:99–125
• Gordon, L., Rees, C. E., & Jindal-Snape, D. (2020). Doctors’ identity transitions: Choosing to
occupy a state of ‘betwixt and between’. Medical Education.
• Monrouxe, L., & Poole, G. (2013). An onion? Conceptualising and researching identity. Medical
education, 47(4), 425-429.
• Burford, B., Vance, G., Rothwell, C., Scott, J., & Jones, S. (2019). A qualitative evaluation of the
GMC’s trainer recognition framework. Report for the GMC.
• Steinert, Y., Mann, K., Anderson, B., Barnett, B. M., Centeno, A., Naismith, L., ... & Ward, H.
(2016). A systematic review of faculty development initiatives designed to enhance teaching
effectiveness: A 10-year update: BEME Guide No. 40. Medical teacher, 38(8), 769-786.
• Starr S, Ferguson WJ, Haley HL, Quirk M. Community preceptors’ views of their identities as
teachers. Acad Med 2003;78(8):820–5.
• Van Lankveld, T., Schoonenboom, J., Volman, M., Croiset, G., & Beishuizen, J. (2017).
Developing a teacher identity in the university context: A systematic review of the
literature. Higher Education Research & Development, 36(2), 325-342.