Continuous professional development in a digital micro-learning format and lecturer professional identities

This paper explores the underexamined area of digital micro-learning and lecturer professional identities in the context of mandatory, continuous professional development. While digital micro-learning is recognized for offering flexible, engaging, and manageable development opportunities, it is a relatively new domain with a lack of research linking this mode to educator professional identities in higher education. To address this gap, semi-structured interviews using visual elicitation were conducted with lecturers at a college in the Middle East. Adopting a sociocultural identity lens encompassing engagement, imagination and alignment, the findings reveal three themes and various frames of professional identities which emerged through lecturer participation in digital micro-learning. The features of the learning interventions produced lecturers as autonomous and self-directed lifelong learners. Coupled with the pandemic, digital micro-learning courses allowed lecturers to develop as proficient and adaptable educators during turbulent times in their occupational context. However, regardless of the short duration, the lecturers were unable to reconcile perceived redundant digital micro-learning with professional self-image, resulting in disengaged and disrupted identities.