How to supervise

Nobody understands the complexity of supervisory duties and the added value of good supervisors better than a doctoral researcher. While supervising is a lifelong skill, this course provides an initial opportunity to reflect on yourselves as supervisors, your styles of communication and providing feedback, and the relevance of holding an intercultural lens on the process.

When it comes to supervising, there is no "one size fits all." While some research-based practices may lead to better outputs, it is important to acknowledge our strengths and limitations in addressing this responsibility. In this course, you will also have opportunities to share your very real problems among peers and seek better ways of dealing with challenging situations.

While it is a challenge to adapt to every discipline, we also aim to incorporate scientific, mathematical, and engineering flavour into the course.

We hope to see you here soon!

ECTS

In terms of certification, this course counts for your PhD training as follows:

• Employed PhD candidates who are supervising as part of their job get 1 ECTS credits for completing this course.
• Scholarship PhD candidates do not supervise as part of their job. When taking this course, you can combine it with voluntary supervision (contact your supervisor for more information). Completion of the course combined with the voluntary supervision is rewarded with 1+3 ECTS.

Prerequisites and certificate of completion

• You can only take this course if you have concrete supervision plans. We apply all theory to your own situation as a supervisor. If you don’t have supervision duties coming up, you can follow the introduction to teaching course instead. This will give you a broad introduction into teaching and supervising at the university level.
• To be able to participate in the training, you are expected to have a good command of English in order to present and carry out discussions with your peers.
• Attendance of the workshops is mandatory. You can only miss one workshop (in that case, you have to complete an alternative assignment) in order to be able to receive the certificate of completion.

Learning goals:

After this course, you will be able to…

• support the BSc/MSc student to develop their skills as a researcher.
• align mutual expectations between the BSc/MSc student and themselves
• adapt their supervision style to the level and personality of the student(s) and to the stage of the research project.
• Formulate constructive feedback to increase the quality of learning.
• Use assessment rubrics to grade student work reliably and transparently.
• Find solutions for the challenges facing them using their resources, evidence and peer collaboration.

Course dates:

The February course (from 1pm to 3:30pm)

• Workshop 1 - 4 feb 2025
• Workshop 2 - 11 feb 2025
• Workshop 3 - 18 feb 2025
• Workshop 4 - 4 march  2025
• Workshop 5 - 18 mar 2025
• Workshop 6 - 25 mar 2025

The April course (from 1pm to 3:30pm)

• Workshop 1 - 17 apr 2025 14 apr 2025
• Workshop 2 - 24 apr 2025
• Workshop 3 - 1 may 2025
• Workshop 4 - 15 may  2025
• Workshop 5 - 5 jun 2025
• Workshop 6 - 12 jun 2025