Perceptions of Teacher Identity

This research note explores how a novice lecturer continues to develop her teacher identity by using the “onion model” or “a model of levels of change” which has been introduced and used for teacher education by Korthagen (2004), especially in terms of developing teacher identity. The model has six layers: the environment, behaviour, competencies, beliefs, identity and mission or deepest inspiration to understand and explore people’s behaviors from within. The author created three types of reflection sheets through which one can self-reflect as a teacher for each layer to help face issues and challenges in the classroom by exploring teacher beliefs and identity behind behaviour. In addition to gaining awareness of professional identity and beliefs, the benefit of exploring teacher identity through such reflection sheets was also seen in developing competencies in lesson planning. The examples of such lessons are introduced in the Results section. This research note aims to help teachers gain awareness of their professional identity and beliefs in order to become better teachers