The presentation stems from a research project oriented towards the qualification of teachers and the aim is to deepen the understanding of how student teachers and newly qualified teachers describe the further qualification process to a fully-fledged teacher in terms of didactic thinking/reflection and actions? The research sets out from the perspective of Finnish conditions, but is to be understood in relation to more general processes of societal change. In the presentation our focus will partly be placed on the concept of supervised practice for student teachers and partly on the design of the research project concerning newly qualified teachers' professional growth. The study comprises both class teachers and subject teachers. The area of interest is to capture how student teachers and newly qualified teachers shape the professional qualification process in theory and practice. Therefore the focus is on the reflections on their development towards increasingly independent didactic actions, as well as towards their cognitions of these actions. Thus, the question deals with how teacher education affects the teachers’ conceptions of the teacher work. The first presentation deals with a longitudinal study of student teachers’ development towards professional and autonomous action, whereas the second investigates newly qualified teachers’ work experiences.