This study aims to assess the level of emotional intelligence of student teachers. The authors used Mayer and Salovey’s emotional intelligence model and the MSCEIT test of emotional intelligence. This study shows that the pre-service teachers studied have levels of emotional intelligence below the norm for the wider population. The gender differences are greater in this sample than would be expected in the wider population. These data suggest that, on average, student teachers may need help in all four of the competence areas that have been described. The data also suggests that male students, on average, are weaker than female students at using emotions to facilitate thinking and at regulation of emotion.

This research aimed to understand how today’s teachers, operating in an exploratory context, experience the teaching profession over time. The findings reveal that these three teachers' experiences highlight the ways in which they continue to use their instructional skills for the benefit of others. After leaving the classroom, all three of these former teachers found that a career transition out of education was not as seamless as anticipated. These teachers each found that their detours through the classroom had concrete professional, financial, and emotional costs in the form of delayed entry into new careers, tuition costs, and daily struggles. The author concludes that this study identifies concerns about the costs for the teachers themselves while also recognizing the transformative potential of former educators applying their skills throughout society in a myriad of ways.

This study examines the evolution of one novice’s teacher’s informal virtual mentoring network to determine if characteristics of traditional mentoring networks and relationships mirror characteristics of a Twitter mentoring network. Results indicate that the novice teacher’s network was used primarily to seek information from other professionals, since her two primary informal mentors were secondary mathematics teachers. Novice teachers typically have more information needs than more experienced teachers and would likely need to ask more questions and have fewer resources to share than experienced teachers. Furthermore, the frequency of interactions decreased over time despite the potential ease of posting to Twitter.

This study identifies the influential variables for professional development as a teacher evaluation outcome from a teachers’ perspective. The findings reveal that the effect of the evaluation system on professional development is limited. The effects teachers perceive from the evaluation system on their professional development may be related to different characteristics of the evaluation system. The results of this study show that limited teaching experience, useful feedback and a positive attitude of the principal are the most important characteristics of the evaluation system. These characteristics are positively related to outcomes of the teacher evaluation system on professional development.

The current study aimed to investigate the professional learning of student-teachers in Bachelor of Education programmes. The findings suggest a typology of different approaches of practicalising theoretical knowledge which reflect how student-teachers make personal interpretations of theoretical knowledge and develop their own teaching pedgagogies in school contexts. The three approaches to practicalising theoretical knowledge include the Procedural Approach, the Reflective-adaptive approach, and the Reflective-theorising approach. The authors conclude that the different approaches of practicalising theoretical knowledge and suggested ways of maximising professional learning are derived from empirical findings in a programme which tends to put emphasis on professional learning in the higher education context as compared to the school-based context.