This document discusses compassion and identity issues for PhD students who teach. It describes a training course called Establishing a Teaching Persona (ETP) that City University of London provides for its PhD students. The ETP is a 1.5 day course that addresses topics like the teacher's professional identity and role, building relationships with students, and teaching with compassion. Student feedback praised the course's focus on practical teaching situations and compassion. Some suggested expanding the course to allow more teaching practice and discipline-specific material. The document also reviews literature on developing teacher identity and the role of compassion in education.

1. Compassion, identity and
training for PhD students
who teach
Dr Jessica Hancock
Lecturer in Educational Development
City, University of London
jessica.hancock@city.ac.uk @LittleAsALeaf

2. City, UoL context
◊GTAs at City – Learning, Teaching and Assessment module from
MA in Academic Practice
◊Jan-April 2018 – informal interviews - 24 PhD students and
academic staff - City’s five schools
◊Practical issues: behaviour management; engagement;
interpersonal skills; building resilience
◊Identity: imposter syndrome; authority; liminality; self vs
imitation of others

3. Compassion

4. Compassion and education
◊Nascent compassionate turn? (Hancock, 2018); (Gibbs, 2018)
◊Reaction to pressures, marketisation, metrics
◊Compassion – creating sense of community, belonging - (Frost,
2000)
◊ Page-Gould et al (2008) – undergrads - formation of cross-group
friendship
◊ Group work - inclusive eye contact (Vertegaal et al, 2002)
◊Self and others (Waddington, 2018)

5. Identity
◊Identity-based judgements on educators (Wagner, Rieger,&
Voorvelt, 2016)
◊Professional identities: who I want to become (Beijaard et al.
2004) – competing discourses (Sachs, 2001)
◊Appreciation, connectedness, competence, commitment,
imagining a future career trajectory – (Lankveld et al, 2016)
◊Compassion as a professional attribute (Maxwell, 2017)

6. Compassion and identity issues in
Ed Dev for PhD students
◊Do you already address identity in your educational
development courses? If so, how?
◊Do you already address compassion in your educational
development courses? If so, how?
◊What ideas/ suggestions do you have to foreground compassion
and identity issues?

7. Establishing a Teaching Persona (ETP)
https://doi.org/10.14297/jpaap.v6i3.380
◊ Optional course
◊ September: 21 students
◊ January: 17 students
◊ (182 teaching PhDs 17/18, out of 450 total)
◊ 1.5 days – one taught, half-day micro-teach activity
◊ Lecture-based topics:
◊ The teacher as part of HE in the UK
◊ The teacher as planner/ presenter
◊ The teacher as gatekeeper

8. Creativity, collaboration, discussion
◊The teacher as a constructed
professional identity / one of many
identities
◊The teacher as an authority/
relationship builder
◊The teacher as compassionate
◊The teacher as a specialist
◊The teacher as learner (other PhDs) /
reflector

9. ETP vs your suggestions
◊Comparison of ETP with suggestions made during previous
discussion
◊Would ETP work in your context?
◊Why/ why not?
◊If not, what adaptations would you want to make?

10. Student questionnaire, respondents:
Sept 16/21 (76%), Jan 12/17 (71%)
◊ Praise:
◊ focus on compassion;
◊ “getting to discuss my anxieties”;
◊ “student mental health/ emotional considerations”;
◊ information about engaging students and establishing authority; discussion of
practical situations;
◊ the Lego activity; the micro-teach; interactivity and “the various kinds of
activities”; “the multiple facilitators”.
◊ Suggested improvements:
◊ longer/ single-day course (more formal lectures)
◊ more teaching practise
◊ more discipline-specific focus
◊ inclusion of material on discrimination
◊ refreshments.

11. References
◊ Beijaard, D., Meijer, P. C., & Verloop, N. (2004). Reconsidering research on teachers’ professional
identity. Teaching and Teacher Education, 20, 107–128
◊ Frost, P. J., Dutton, J.E., , Worline, M. C., & Wilson, A. (2000). Narratives of compassion in
organizations. In. S. Fineman, (Ed.), Emotions in Organizations (pp. 25–45). California: Sage
Publications.
◊ Gibbs, P. (Ed.), The Pedagogy of Compassion at the Heart of Higher Education. Cham: Springer
◊ Hancock, J. C. (2018). Engaging With Liminalities and Combating Toxicity: A Compassionate
Approach to Developing Professional Identities for Phd Students Who Teach. Journal of Perspectives in
Applied Academic Practice. 6:3, 66-74 https://doi.org/10.14297/jpaap.v6i3.380
◊ 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, DOI: 10.1080/07294360.2016.1208154
◊ Maxwell, B. Pursuing the Aim of Compassionate Empathy in Higher Education. In Gibbs, P. (Ed.),
The Pedagogy of Compassion at the Heart of Higher Education Cham: Springer (118-167)
◊ Page-Gould, E., Mendoza-Denton, R. & Tropp, L. (2008). With a little help from my cross-group
friend: Reducing anxiety in intergroup contexts through cross-group friendship. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 95(5), 1080-1094
◊ Sachs, J. (2001). ‘Teacher professional identity: competing discourses, competing outcomes’,
Journal of Educational Policy, 16(2): 149–16
◊ Vertegaal, R. & Ding, Y. (2002). Effects of eye gaze on mediated group conversations: Amount or
synchronization? Proceedings of the 2002 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative
Work. (pp. 41-48). New Orleans.
◊ Waddington, K (2018) Creating Conditions for Compassion. In Gibbs, P. (Ed.), The Pedagogy of
Compassion at the Heart of Higher Education. Cham: Springer (168-227) [online]
doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57783-8_1
◊ Wagner, N., Rieger, M., & Voorvelt, K. (2016). Gender, ethnicity and teaching evaluations: Evidence
from mixed teaching teams. Economics of Education Review, 54, 79–94.