During the last years new trends in research on hybridization of practices has emerged by letting researchers and teachers work alongside each other (Hamza et al 2018). In these projects, the practice of the researchers and the teachers, were treated as practices in a joint dialog. The professional development of supervisioning practices is of vital importance in teacher education and regarded as an important field of research in the national development of teacher education (Toom & Husu 2017). My paper is a case study about a joint project started in the year of 2015, between the faculty of education and the university school, at Åbo Academy University, in Vaasa. The aim of the project is to promote professional development of supervisors. The starting point of the project was a vision of knowledge creation about supervision practices proposed by a group of teachers working at the university school in Vasa and researchers from the teacher education at the same site. All teachers at the university school and most of the university lecturers are supervisors of teacher students during their practice period.

The research on the project has a case study approach, using concepts as learning by expanding and other analytical tools introduced in theories developed by Engeström (2015). The ideas of learning by expanding was originally introduced by Engeström in 1987, and has parallels with (Engeström 1996) practices of communities by Lave and Wenger (1991). Similarities can also be find with descriptions of processes in organizational capacity for self-renewal (Ståhle 1998). A later example of a compatible approach is the practice-based research described in McGuirk & Methi (2015), which is similarly pragmatic and situation-sensitive. The question of knowledge of super visioning practices has been treated as an open-ended epistemic object as discussed by Miettinen & Virkkunen (2005).

Research on core issues in professional development on super visioning is mainly regarded as a rarely researched field (Levine 2011). Levine (2011) accomplishes the theme by summarizing earlier findings about professional development in teacher education such as norms promoting collaboration, joint activities to promote practice, and relational questions about trust and familiarity. The study adds new themes as shared expectations, the time needed for the process and responsiveness to differences, as valuable features in developing the professional community of supervisors.

Research data used for my study consists of focus group interviews, notes from meetings in the planning committee, reports from teamwork and reports from afternoon seminars with teacher – researcher collaboration. The use of concepts as learning by expanding, activity-theory and practice-based research is an attempt to unveil the procedural aspects and connect an understanding of the context in relation to the understanding of comprehended perspectives on supervision practices. Thus aiming to dig deeper than explanations about general premises for professional development. The practice-based research with its focus on thoughts and descriptions made by capable and experienced supervisors opens up a crack between the common understanding of the supervision practice declared in typical official information about the practice, and the insights professionals emanate during long practice.

By outlining the experienced significant points during the working time of the project, we get a description that discusses knowledge of super visioning, and insights about traits in the existing activity-systems. 

The research is basically based on content-analysis of focus-group interviews, document analysis and data about the workshops and meetings carried out.

Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings The paper presents a characterization of the learning arenas carried out, and elaborates two dimensions in the research of the development of the project so far, a) developing insights in the border zone between the activity-systems of the faculty and the university-school, and b) findings based on the practice-based approach to knowledge about supervision.

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