As a part of their teaching responsibilities, PhD students sometimes supervise undergraduate students. In doing so, the PhD students play an important role as a near-peer-supervisor guiding the students in their learning. This course aims to prepare PhD students to act as co-supervisors on Bachelor's and Master's students assignments and/or learning processes.  

Learning outcome

By the end of the course, the participants are able to

• Discuss and reflect on requirements and responsibilities of different supervisor and co-supervisor roles,
• Provide feedback to undergraduate students’ written or oral presentation in a way that facilitate the undergraduate students’ learning process, and
• Acquire knowledge about undergraduate students’ expectations and interests in order to balance supervisor’s control and undergraduate students’ own control of their projects

Content

Before the first day of the course, participants are to do a small online learning activity pertaining to their actual experiences with supervision of undergraduate students.

The main themes of the first day of the course are:

• The roles, requirements and responsibilities of the PhD student as a co-supervisor
• The power of feedback – how to provide feedback that promotes learning?
• Product and process in the supervision – who controls the undergraduates’ project?

Between the two course days, participants are to do an assignment related to their own practice.

The main themes of the second day of the course are:

• Alignment of expectations and interests
• Discussions and peer-feedback on the participants’ assignments
• Theme decided based on the suggestions and interests amongst the participants.