Who am I? Teacher identities and the PGR tutor

Abstract

This reflective piece is meant to produce more questions than answers. It can be used as a framework both by PGRs who enter a classroom for the first time and by more experienced ones. PGRs who teach will often question their role inside the classroom: “am I a teacher or a facilitator? which side of the fence am I at? Am I one of the students or one of the teachers?” Questions like these usually arise from the ambiguity of a tutor’s role, whether they are there to facilitate understanding of a lesson that someone else taught, or if they are actually the teacher of this module for a specific group of students. Being a teacher for a few years before pursuing a PhD, I found myself wondering the exact same thing when I first entered the classroom as a PGR tutor. In this written piece, I briefly go through the literature on teacher roles and identity, and I reflect on how my previous experience helped inform my identity as a PGR tutor.