Supervising PhD Candidates at the Graduate School of Life Sciences (Online)

Course description

Supervising scientific research is a complicated process. The nature and possibilities of the researcher, the supervisor(s), and the type of research determine the best (intervention) strategy. The course aims to expand the repertoire of PhD supervisors, enabling them to offer supervision more efficiently and effectively. As a daily supervisor or (co)promoter you are a content expert, but also a (co)researcher, coach and assessor. In this course, supervisors learn to handle these roles more efficiently and effectively. Topical questions are raised as: "How do you help the PhD candidate to become an independent researcher?," "How do you signal problem behavior of your PhD candidate in time and how do you deal with it?", "How do you take different personal, work and learning styles into account?” and “How do you communicate about mutual expectations?”

Target group

This course is primarily aimed at relatively new (co-)supervisors of PhD candidates of the GS-LS, although more experienced supervisors are also welcome. Some experience with supervising PhD candidates is required, in order to be able to reflect on your own supervising behaviour during the course. This course will be given in English, and will be given ONLINE for as long as necessery. 

Learning objectives

After this course:

• You have reflected on your own supervision practice
• You have gained insights in your own strength and development points, but also in those of your PhD candidate
• You will be able to apply didactical insights (theories) to your own supervision practice
• You have broadened your supervision skills (e.g. coaching & conversation skills, feedback skills)
• You have practiced how to use more effective ways to handle intercultural work situations
• You will be able to signal problem behavior in time, and deal with difficult situations in your supervision practice from a broader perspective
• You have formulated, implemented, and evaluated plans how to optimize your supervision practice to meet PhD candidates’ needs
• You have developed a personal supervision plan

Instructional method

The programme covers a range of basic subjects. The level of detail will partly depend on the needs of participants (based on the analysis of strengths and weaknesses conducted in advance). The definitive programme (for each session) will be compiled before the start of the course.

Basic subjects:

• Organisation & Regulations of the Graduate School of Life Sciences
• Selection of PhD candidates
• Clarifying the mutual expectations of PhD candidates and supervisors, partly in relation to the implicit standards and guidelines for obtaining a doctorate and the associated supervision.
• Goal oriented supervision: giving balanced feedback, adjusted to learning needs, type of PhD candidate and research phase. 
• (Intercultural) communication skills 
• Progress assessments: content and procedure 
• Recognizing risks and warning signals

The course will focus on placing supervisors' experience from their own day-to-day practice in the context of theory and exploring its implications. The following assignments provide some idea of how this will work:

• Developing a supervision plan (how to work towards specific learning objectives in a targeted way)
• Developing scenarios for difficult situations that regularly occur
• Formulating concrete plans (SMART) and implementing and evaluating these.

Supervisors' own day-to-day practice will be used as the basis. This will be achieved in part by means of the following:

• At the intake: conducting an analysis of strengths/weaknesses in terms of quality of the PhD candidate and the supervisor
• Engaging in discussion with PhD candidates (about mutual expectations)
• Discussions and role-plays
• Analysing a recording of one of the participants' supervisory meetings
• Peer-feedback (based on a problem put forward by one of the supervisors)

After finishing the course, each participant can opt for individual coaching sessions with an experienced coach.

This course counts as didactic training for your University Teaching Qualification (BKO). 
Learn more about achieving a University Teaching Qualification (BKO).

Trainers

Dr. Jessica Hegeman, Educational Consultancy & Teacher Development (O&T), Utrecht University. 
Course meeting ‘intercultural communication’: Janneke Dubbelboer (Janneke Dubbelboer Communicatie). 

Group size

10 to 12 participants

Course dates

Course fee

The PhD Course Centre provides this course free of charge to (co-)supervisors from the Graduate School of Life Sciences.

Our no-show policy

We are happy to offer this course for free to all GSLS (co-)supervisors. However: free of charge does not mean free of responsibility. Our activities tend to be fully booked well in advance. For every late cancellation or no-show we have had to disappoint others who would have liked to attend. 

This is how we work: 

• Once you have signed up for a course, we expect you to attend;
• If you need to cancel your registration, do so at the earliest possible moment, at least four weeks before the start of the course;
• If you really have to, you are allowed to miss up to one session of this course in total. You always have to attend the first course session;
• Not meeting the attendance requirements or cancelling within four weeks before the course starts means you will be charged no-show fee (€600 for this course);
• We are unable to make any exceptions.

I got introduced into a huge body of knowledge on supervision that will help me improve my supervision style for the rest of my career.

Making a supervision plan really forced me to think about who I want to be as a supervisor.

Interactive course where you learn from fellow supervisors.