Course The PhD-student as supervisor for undergraduate students – how and when?

The course, A293/03 The PhD-student as supervisor for undergraduate students – how and when?, is being offered by the Graduate School of Health, Aarhus University, autumn 2021

Criteria for participation: University degree in medicine, dentistry, nursing, or Master’s degree in other fields and/or postgraduate research fellows (PhD students and research-year medical students).

Aim: 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 and master students assignments and/or learning processes.  

Learning outcomes: 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.

Recommended knowledge for participation: This course is relevant for all PhD students who wish to improve their quality of supervision. It is not crucial that the student has regular supervision with undergraduate students. However, participants will probably benefit the most if they already supervise or have supervision experience.  

Instructors: Mette Krogh Christensen and colleagues from Centre for Health Sciences Education

Dates: 9 - 16 September E-learning, 16 September and 6 October Class room teaching

Venue: Meeting room 1, The Conference Centre, Fredrik Nielsens Vej 4, 8000 Aarhus C

Participation in the course is without cost for:

• PhD students, Research Year students and Research Honours Programme students from Aarhus University
• PhD students enrolled at partner universities of the Nordoc collaboration
• PhD students from other institutions in the open market agreement for PhD courses

Course dates:

• 09 September 2021
• 16 September 2021 09:00 - 15:00
• 06 October 2021 09:00 - 15:00