Learning through boundary-crossing: further education lecturers learning in both the university and workplace

This paper reports on a research project that sought to gain a deeper understanding of the contribution that universities make to the professional learning of teachers. The particular case studied was a group of learners who were engaged in an inservice teacher education course for further education (FE) whilst also working as lecturers in FE colleges in Scotland. The paper develops the narrative of learning across boundaries (Saunders 2006) drawing on the work of Engestrom (1987, 2001). The claim made is that the learning that takes place across the boundary of the workplace and university has the possibility of helping learners to resolve issues that the workplace alone does not provide them with the resources to resolve.