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

The course A293/04 The PhD student as supervisor for undergraduate students - how and when? is being offered by the Graduate School of Health, Aarhus University, spring 2022.

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 act as co-supervisors for undergraduate students’ bachelor projects, written assignments, master thesis or research year assignments. 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 their role as co-supervisors on undergraduate 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 prepare a few online learning activities pertaining to their actual experiences with supervision of undergraduate students and they read 1-2 articles.

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?
• Alignment of expectations and interests

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

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

• Discussions and peer-feedback on the participants’ assignments
• Product and process in the supervision – who controls the undergraduates’ project?
• The art of asking questions that promote learning in supervision

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

Instructors: Mette Krogh Christensen and colleagues from Centre for Educational Development, Aarhus University.

Dates: 21 - 27 March: E-learning, 28 March and 20 April: Class room teaching

Venue: Meeting room 1910-228, Centre for Educational Development, Trøjborgvej 82-84, 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:

• 21 March 2022
• 28 March 2022 09:00 - 15:00
• 20 April 2022 09:00 - 15:00