187 Summary 7 educators’ beliefs about teaching, learning, and knowledge, we used the new beliefs framework; and to examine their awareness of their educational identity and mission, we used the educator phenotype model. The Critic and Practitioner phenotypes represent educators who are unaware of their educational identity and mission, the Role model phenotype those who are aware of their identity but not their mission, and the Inspirer phenotype those who are aware of both identity and mission. Our results show that educators demonstrated both teaching-centred and learning-centred beliefs, which aligned with an awareness of their educational identity and mission. Educators who were unaware of both their identity and mission displayed teaching-centred beliefs, which confirms the importance of awareness of an educational identity and mission for learning-centred education. Educators with learning-centred beliefs all showed an awareness of their educational identity. These educators may be more motivated to reflect on whether their teaching role aligns with their beliefs and with the learningcentred educational context, than educators for whom their educational identity is less evident. Educators who were aware of their identity but not their mission (Role model phenotype) displayed either teaching-centred or learning-centred beliefs. The finding that some educators showed teaching-centred beliefs may be explained by the influence of the organisation’s implicit educational culture that may still favour teaching-centred beliefs, even though the formal educational context embraces learning-centred education. Educators aware of their identity and mission (Inspirer phenotype) displayed exclusively learning-centred beliefs. This underlines the relevance of educators’ personal educational mission awareness in learning-centred education. Awareness of an educational mission is apparently an effective ‘antidote’ which may help strengthen and maintain learning-centred beliefs even when the educational culture does not support learning-centred beliefs and behaviours. The study presented in this chapter sheds light on the importance of educational identity and mission awareness for educators working in learning-centred curricula. This implies that faculty development should not only pay attention to the what and how of teaching, but also to who one wishes to be as educator, to promote identity awareness as a teacher. Moreover, our findings highlight the importance of reflecting on why one teaches, to foster awareness of one’s personal mission as a teacher. To develop this awareness we recommend reflection on the ‘self’ as well as on the teaching and learning process. Since affective aspects predominate in the articulation of an educational identity and mission, one way to encourage this reflection is through meaningful relationships with others. Examples of these are
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