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AARHUS BSS: Bachelor’s, Master’s, and PhD Supervision for Associate Professors and Professors

Objective

The aim of this course is to expand and consolidate supervision strategies and methods for supervisors of Bachelor's, Master's-, and PhD students at the Aarhus BSS Graduate School.

The course also aims at furthering the sharing of experiences among university supervisors within their faculty to enhance the co-development of local practices and collegial support.

Learning outcomes

After the course, the participants will be able to:

  • determine their own approach to supervision as part of aligning expectations with the students in accordance with current regulations and the outcomes of their project
  • identify and deal with typical challenges in supervision, such as balancing between the support and the control function, between the product and the process dimension, and between the private and the professional domain, in a supervision relationship
  • provide appropriate feedback to promote students’ writing processes
  • employ communicative techniques to enhance supervision outcomes and promote student independence
  • receive and give collegial feedback as part of developing own and others' supervisory skills
  • utilize their professional community as a resource in their supervision practice

Course content

The course involves the participants’ existing experiences as well as current research. It aims at strengthening participants’ supervisory skills within following areas:

  1. Content, text-based competencies
    These involve clarifying academic requirements to written products and supporting writing processes by providing and enabling the enactment of constructive feedback.
  2. Relational and process-oriented competencies
    These involve establishing trusting relationships and negotiating and revisiting expectations
  3. Communicative competencies
    These involve conversational techniques that stimulate students’ independent thinking and promote reflexivity.
  4. Community building competencies
    These involve the co-development of local practices and collegial support through sharing experiences with supervision and engaging in reflexive conversations on issues related to supervision.

Course programme

The course consists of two parts. It starts with a 1-day seminar, on campus, and preparation tasks. The first part includes preparatory activities, online, and a seminar day, on campus. This part focuses specifically on MA- & BA-student supervision. The second part covers the area of PhD-supervision and will take place conjointly with colleagues from the Faculty of Arts. It consists of an online module and two seminar days with corresponding preparatory activities.

Preparation: 

Online in Brightspace, opens 20 June 2024.

Seminar day 1:

22 August 2024 from 9.00-15.30.

Online self-paced module:

Online in Brightspace, opens 23 August 2024.

This part introduces participants to the field of doctoral supervision including awareness of legal and organisational dimensions. It also includes preparation tasks for the upcoming seminar day.

Seminar day 2: Tools & practices in PhD-supervision

10 October 2024 from 9.00-15.30.

This part covers the essential elements of PhD -supervision and brings experienced and inexperienced supervisors up to date on the developments and research in the area.

Individual/ Peer work

Between seminar day 2 and seminar day 3 of the course the supervisor will do a peer observation and/or an interview with a senior PhD-supervisor about his or her experiences with supervision.
The learning from the peer observation and/or the interview will be used on seminar day 3 to initiate discussions.

Seminar day 3

21 November 2024 from 9.00-15.30.

This part focuses mainly on processual aspects of supervision, including time management, collegial supervision skills and community building and will also draw on issues that have come up in the interviews.

The course is sequenced as follows

  1. Preparation before course start (off-/online, 3,5 hrs.)
  2. Seminar day 1 / BA- & MA-supervision (campus, 6,5 hrs.)
  3. Online self-paced module / PhD-supervision (online, 6 hrs.)
  4. Seminar day 2/ PhD-supervision (campus, 6,5 hrs.)
  5. Practice between seminar day 2 and seminar day 3 (peer work, 5 hrs.)
  6. Seminar day 3/ consolidating local practices (campus, 6,5 hrs.)

The total workload is estimated to 34 hours.

To pass the course, you must participate in all the course elements and seminar days, and complete the required tasks.

All participants will preferably be involved in current student supervision (BA/ MA/ PhD) to provide a context for the practical assignments, and they are expected to document their competence development in a professional portfolio.

An overview and instructions regarding the required tasks will be available on Brightspace about 1 working month before the course starts.

Registration

Autumn 2024 

  • Registration link will be distributed by the Dean's Office at Aarhus BSS

  • Contact at the Dean's Office is Katrine Korsgaard Jensen
    Phone: +45 9352 2553
    Mail: katrinekorsgaard@au.dk

Course days

  • 22 August 2024 from 09:00 to 15:30 
    Aarhus University, building 1910, room 228 
     
  • 10 October 2024 from  09:00 to 15:30
    Aarhus University, building 1910, room 228 
     
  • 21 November 2024 from  09:00 to 15:30
    Aarhus University, building 1910, room 228 

Info

  • Target group: PhD supervisors og senior VIP.
  • Language: English 
  • Duration: 34 hours – including the online module and preparations/assignments before and between the seminar days on campus.
  • Prerequisites for participation: Preferably, that you are involved with supervision or co-supervision of a PhD student, or of a BA or MA student.
  • Format: Blended – 1 campus seminar day + 1 online module + 2 campus seminar days.
  • No. of participants: Min. 10, max. 30
  • Course certificate: upon satisfactory completion

Contact

Dorina Gnaur

Special Consultant

Administrative contact