Near peer educator

For my creative enquiry, I chose to explore psychological safety. My interpretation of this concept is that it is the responsibility of an educator to create a learning environment where students feel safe to contribute and engage without fear of getting answers wrong, being ridiculed or feeling embarrassed. I developed an interest for this topic after attending the Great Programme and NUGGETS discussions on student participation in teaching & learning opportunities.

I reflected on my own experiences (and emotions) of teaching opportunities where I did not feel comfortable engaging with questions or volunteering my thoughts or participation, and I considered what I could do as an educator to avoid my students feeling a similar way. I asked students and doctors about times when they have felt that they did not have this psychological safety. They responded with (i) negative thoughts that they have had and/or (ii) quotes from educators who have said something to them that made them feel any of the above ways.

I have visually represented these contributions with a collage of thought bubbles and speech bubbles. It is my hope that educators view this and reflect on what they can do to cultivate psychological safety in their learning environment. It is sometimes the case that we teach in the way that we ourselves have been taught, despite knowing that these methods are suboptimal to encouraging participation or fostering psychological safety. I believe that this is something that we need to actively reflect on, so we are aware of the way we present ourselves to students and how we consciously (and subconsciously) shape the learning environment with our actions.

Andrew Whitehead (year 5 medical student, Near peer elective) 2022