Understanding what, how, and why teacher educators learn through their personal examples of learning

This research aimed to understand the emotional development of teacher educators and its influence on their professional identity, it is the report of an exploratory case study conducted on a sample of teacher educators in their initial years of profession. They were interviewed to reflect on emotional events of their classrooms and were asked how these emotions help in development of professional identity. The research question was how emotional events contribute in evolution of professional identity of teacher educators. Findings of this study might be used as a reference for a professional identity model that reflected the educators’ understanding of self in relation to various emotional events. This study yielded four key signs of professional identity development: (a) identity beliefs, (b) emotional events and identity negotiation, (c) teachers’ attributes and (d) adjustment. All participants stressed out that the role of emotional events is very important in developing professional identity. The study expounded that pleasing emotional events supported teacher educators’ identities and unpleasing emotional events caused confrontation and modified their emerging identities.