Are you a new PhD student or new in the role of supervisor? Ronny Gunnarsson (Unviersity of Gothenburg/James Cook University Australia) has been doing research on supervising PhD students. He wanted to become better at supvervising his PhD students and decided to video interview supervisors and PhD students. The interviews resulted in sig hours of tape which was then cut down to three films.
Who wants Einstein is a series of three films:
- Part 1 – The good example (approx. 42 min) deal with how to avoid problems in suverivison situation
- Part 2 – Disagreements are OK (approx.33 min) talks about disagreements and how they are a normal in supervisor – PhD student relation
- Part 3 – The new PhD education (approx. 26 min) talks about the changes in PhD education and which stregths and weaknesses there are to the development
The first film can be summarized in the following eight points:
- Make sure PhD student work is fun
- Clarify expectations and structure
- There is not one truth. There are just choices
- PhD student grows
- Talk openly about disagreements
- Right amouht of supervisors: not too many nor too few
- PhD student should make most decisions
- Supevisor should encourage and support
Each film is conclued with discussion questions that can be relevant to discuss between supervisors but even with PhD students, e.g. who has the final responsibility student or supervisor and should the supervisor take part in coursers in supervision and develop pedagogical skills regularly? Did you know that CLU, Center for Teaching and Learning, arranges courses for supervisors?
Pieta Eklund