105 Educational beliefs, identity and mission 4 PRACTICE POINTS • Faculty development interventions should focus on helping educators develop teaching beliefs that align with the educational principles of learning-centred education. • Understanding the educational identity and mission of an educator may help to influence teaching beliefs. • Faculty development interventions should enable medical educators to reflect not only on who they wish to be as educators, but also on why they teach, that is, on what drives and inspires them. • Having an educational mission may help strengthen and maintain learning-centred beliefs, even when the educational culture does not support learning-centredness. INTRODUCTION Learning-centred education has gained ground in recent decades and is commonly implemented in medical schools around the world.1 The medical educators involved play a crucial role in the success of this education. Instead of a sole focus on the transfer of factual knowledge, educators in learning-centred curricula also aim to facilitate the students’ learning processes.2-4 To be able to support and facilitate student learning in a learning-centred educational context, medical educators’ beliefs about teaching and learning need to be consistent with the educational principles behind learning-centred education. Indeed, the literature shows that beliefs are one of the driving forces behind educators’ teaching behaviours and the choices they make in the design and delivery of their teaching.5-8 ‘Beliefs’ refer to conceptions about teaching and learning which are formed throughout life, are deeply rooted, and can consist of both cognitive and affective aspects.9,10 Although many medical schools have implemented learning-centred curricula, a substantial number of educators in these schools appear to have teaching-centred, rather than learning-centred, beliefs.4,11 To effectively encourage learning-centred teaching behaviours, we need to understand which factors influence educators’ beliefs about teaching and learning.
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