Pandemic Pedagogy #6: Six Lessons for Post-Pandemic Supervision

The pandemic has highlighted a recurring theme of isolation amongst postgraduate students involved in research and, to a lesser extent, writing up their projects (Fogarty, 2021; Forrester, 2021; IFERA, 2021). Lessons learned highlight the importance of the supervisor in mentoring students within the socialisation process of a discipline or professional practice. As we reach the end of the academic journey for postgraduates, and as social restrictions begin to be lifted, here are six observations from my involvement with supervisory teams from September 2020 - September 2021. I wish to highlight the co-responsibility of supervisors and students within the process of disciplinary socialisation. This primarily involves relationship-building and fostering confidence. I will frame these six lessons within a particular view of disciplinary and professional practice supervision as a process of mentoring graduates as emerging "stewards of the discipline" (Golde, 2006) as outlined by the following steps:

1. Making and keeping contact: a good supervisor will mentor students to become proactive and intellectually independent in order to become disciplinary stewards themselves. Throughout the research process students should be encouraged by their supervisors to propose a supervision agenda to keep meetings focused and to work on specific actions that will emerge from a supervision and address particular goals. This action will structure forthcoming meetings and will keep the project in focus and on track within the agreed timeline. It is also a way of keeping track of the achievable goals that can be celebrated as the "small wins" within a sustained project that requires grit and determination to see it through to the end. A good supervisor is patient with their students and motivates them even if they are unable to see themselves progressing and this is why it is important to acknowledge the "small wins" of achievable goals within a sustained research journey. A good supervisor will share their writing and publishing process with students because this channel of communication is an effective way to model the socialisation within disciplinary participation, which should be the goal of all research supervision. This is why each disciplinary thesis or dissertation as a learning artefact is a particular  demonstration of disciplinary knowledge, method, purpose, and form (Boix Mansilla and Gardner, 1998). The role as a supervisor is to integrate your student/s within a discipline which is not just a knowledge domain, but is a community of practice. Each discipline has distinctive ways of knowing, being, acting, and performing. A supervisor embodies these dimensions of the discipline and their willingness to communicate and share this with their students is how they demonstrate the ethos of disciplinary stewardship. 

2. Building and sustaining confidence: the research project is, ultimately, the student’s research project, so it is important for them to take control of the process from an early stage in the research cycle. Supervisions are meeting opportunities to talk through the feedback and to tease out anything that students are not clear about for the benefit of their projects. Over time there will be a shift in the power dynamics between the supervisor and student with the student gradually taking more ownership of their project. It is important that both the supervisor and the student are clear on the nature and purpose of the feedback and on how they plan to integrate feedback into the drafting process. 

3. Take time to draft and redraft: a good supervisor will be sensitive to gradual shifts in power dynamics between the supervisor as “master” and the student as “apprentice” during a project. Here, the power dynamics frequently relate to becoming part of a discipline or profession as a community of practice that has its own way of knowing, being, and acting in the production and communication of knowledge (Shulman, 2005). The traditional cognitive apprenticeship model involves postgraduates entering into this community of practice as a means of disciplinary socialisation. Research as a process and writing up the research do go hand-in-hand. This process will allow students to develop their academic voice by becoming a disciplinary expert as exemplified by demonstrating the knowledge, method, purpose and form of their disciplines as demonstrated through their research project, which functions as a type of cognitive "masterpiece" in this cognitive apprenticeship model. It is vital to draft and redraft throughout the research process and especially near the end of the project. The supervisor will be a mentor, at the early phases of the research project, but should  become a "critical friend" to the work during the final stages of a research project when the roles are reversed and the apprentice becomes a master. The key point, here, is that a supervisor, as a critical friend to the research, will offer students feedback from a perspective of critical distance, which will benefit their research project.

4. Take time to edit: It is important for students to be encouraged by their supervisor to give space and time to make the necessary corrections and edits. It always takes more time than we think to make final changes to benefit the overall quality of the written work.

5. Being mindful of self-care: It is important for students to be kind to themselves and to periodically take time away from thinking and writing on the research. It is not only writing, but thinking about the work that occupies student  time and their “head space". They will be more productive, in the long run, with some time away from the work and it will make the final phase less stressful. 

6. Seeking and sustaining support: being a research student can be isolating. It is important for individuals to develop their informal networks. Supervisors can assist in fostering participation in network-building through a community of practice approach to disciplinary participation. Family and friends can be a support, but it is important that students communicate their needs to them. It is also important for students to clarify their needs to their supervisor. 

As we approach the end of the academic journey for this academic year the nature of supervisory “support” might be for individual  supervisors to make themselves available for an extra meeting with students and also being available to review a draft before final submission. Supervisory teams can model a professional relationship with their postgraduate students by providing them with opportunities to enter into the socialisation of the discipline as a community of practice through participation in shared research, co-teaching, conference participation etc. This mentoring role contributes to students feeling that they are valued within the discipline. It is the role of a good supervisor to guide this process. 


Further Reading: 

Boix Mansilla, V. and Howard Gardner (1998). "Four Dimensions of Understanding." [Online] Available at https://cte.drupal.ku.edu/sites/cte.drupal.ku.edu/files/docs/portfolios/bjohnson/table1_four_dimensions.pdf

Fogarty, S. (2021). "Survey: Nearly 90% of PhDs Feel Pandemic Has Affected Their Research." University Times [Online] Available at https://universitytimes.ie/2021/04/survey-nearly-90-of-phds-feel-pandemic-has-affected-their-research/.

Forrester, N. (2021). "Mental health of graduate students sorely overlooked." Nature [Online] Available at https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01751-z. 

Gardner, H. and Veronica Boix Mansilla  (1994). "Teaching for Understanding Within and Across the Disciplines." Educational leadership: journal of the Department of Supervision and Curriculum Development, N.E.A 51(5) [Online] Available at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/234725768_Teaching_for_Understanding_Within_and_Across_the_Disciplines.

Golde, C. (2006). "Preparing Stewards of the Discipline." Carnegie Perspectives, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. [Online] Available at https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED498972.pdf. 

Huntington, S. (2020). "How to Survive a PhD During a Pandemic." Dr Shane T Huntington OAM

[blog]. [Online] Available at https://medium.com/@DrShaneRRR/how-to-survive-a-phd-during-a-pandemic-3a460e83af42. 

IFREA (2021). "The struggle is really different: Three PhD students at various stages share their story." https://ifera.org/the-struggle-is-really-different-three-phd-students-at-various-stages-share-their-story/.

Shulman, L. (2005). "Signature Pedagogies in the Professions." Daedalus, 134 (3): 52-59. [Online] Available at http://www.jstor.org/stable/20027998. 

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