Editorial — CULtivate on Supervision
On Supervision — CULtivate 04 , 2013
A PhD student describes writing a dissertation in English as the feeling of driving along a pitted road.
This is how one of the participants in a research project on PhD dissertations in English describes the experience of having to write elegantly and meaningfully in a language, which you do not use every day. Another research project on quality in PhD dissertations shows that one third of PhD students at AU feel exhausted and sometimes also stressed and lonely while doing their research projects.
“Writing a PhD dissertation in English is like driving on a road with holes in the asphalt.”
In this issue of CUL’s online magazine, we focus on how we at AU, and in particular at BSS, can develop existing methods and also introduce new methods to help alleviate the feeling of inadequacy and meet the needs for discussing ideas and for feedback. A feeling that can arise from heavy workloads, large classes, and a generally ambitious research and teaching environment. Supervision, mentoring, and feedback are activities which are intended to ensure that we see, hear, and relate to one another. There is a lot to suggest that we would benefit from being better at helping, guiding, and asking inquisitive questions. This way, we could make even better use of each other’s competencies than the case is today.
Among other things, the articles suggest new methods and technologies, which may help revitalise the classic, teacher-controlled feedback, how experienced teachers can help teachers with little experience, and how we can improve our supervision by simply learning to ask the right questions.
For example, Lecturer of the Year at BSS, Lars Henrik Gam Madsen, has used the new digital platform Blackboard to introduce so-called peer assessment. This involved letting law students correct each other’s papers and provide online feedback. This gave the students a chance to work actively with the papers and with each other. The new role meant that they no longer had to wait passively for the teacher to supply the correct answers. This kind of feedback is also an important ingredient in Associate Professor and PhD student Bente Moesgaard Jørgensen’s new research project, which is described in the interview with her in this issue.
It is also necessary to find new ways of working together as teachers. Coaching, mentoring, and discussions with colleagues have long been common and recognised methods, but perhaps even a single session with an experienced teacher can lead to significant improvements and feel like a great help for a new teacher. Read more about so-called ‘supermentoring’ in the article about Associate Professor Ole Lauridsen’s test of the concept.
As usual, the CULtivate editors have also looked into new, exciting experiments with teaching methods. This time, we have been out ‘in the field’ and sat in on Professor Philip Schröder and Associate Professor Allan Sørensen’s experimental use of role-playing in the classroom at the Department of Economics and Business.
If you would like to know more about how you can improve your supervision, or if you are curious about what goes on at a supervision course, take a look at the reportage from a Monday morning in October, when Gitte Wichmann-Hansen held one of her supervision courses for assistant professors.
We hope you enjoy this issue of CULtivate!
