Chapter 9: Supporting the Professional Learning of Beginning Teachers: Learning from Partnership Boundary Brokers and Boundary Objects in Two English Initial Teacher Education Programmes

This chapter discusses some of the issues faced in supporting beginning teacher learning that arise from being located in school–university partnerships in England and considers the complex issues involved in boundaryspanning. In order to explain the fragile nature of developing new ways of working and supporting the effective transfer of knowledge between partnership learning sites, the chapter draws upon the socio-cultural theories of cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT; Bloomfield & Nguyen, 2015; Engeström, 2001; Hutchinson, 2011; Wilson, 2004) and communities of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Tsui et al., 2009) specifically considering the principles of boundary-spanning (Akkerman & Bakker, 2011). Two partnership projects highlight these challenges. The first project focussed on the use of mediated interactive video technology for lesson observation of preservice teachers. The second project focussed on the support provided to beginning teachers from seven experienced in-service teachers from partner schools as they undertook additional practicum visits and school-based mentor support. These were called “coaching visits”—a term coined by the beginning teachers. These projects illustrate English school–university partnership contexts to provide insights into those features that may facilitate or hinder the transfer of knowledge from one community of practice to another.