Community Acuity (18): learning to supervise – a two-way conversation

‘Community Acuity’ blog posts are from supervisors, to supervisors. They share the thoughts, experiences and reflection of the highs and the challenges of supervising doctoral students. This is a guest post by Dr Rob Pilling, Thesis Mentor and Associate Supervisor, Chemical and Biological Engineering. As I waited to meet my first actual Thesis Mentee, I was conscious that they …

Community Acuity (16): it pays to be focused and specific when it comes to choosing a PhD topic

‘Community Acuity’ blog posts are from supervisors, to supervisors. They share the thoughts, experiences and reflection of the highs and the challenges of supervising doctoral students. Dr Parveen Ali is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Nursing and Midwifery at the University of Sheffield. Entering into a PhD programme is a big commitment and certainly a step …

Community Acuity (12): aligning expectations for the thesis in a cross-cultural professional doctorate

‘Community Acuity’ blog posts are from supervisors, to supervisors. They share the thoughts, experiences and reflection of the highs and the challenges of supervising doctoral students. Dr Janet Strivens NTF, is based in the Centre for Higher Education Studies at The University of Liverpool, and supervises on the Professional Doctorate in Higher Education. The Professional Doctorate in Higher …

the challenge of ‘supervising’ students who are doing a PhD by Published Work

This is a guest post by Professor Susan Smith, Associate Director of the Centre for Learning and Teaching, Leeds Beckett University. It is a call for more academic staff training and development for colleagues supervising students doing the PhD by Published Work route. Student with iPad  by ©Jisc and Matt Lincoln is licenced under CC BY-NC-ND https://www.jisc.ac.uk/full-guide/enhancing-the-digital-student-experience The growing diversity of doctoral programmes in Higher …

Community Acuity (5): supervising doctoral writing – situated practices

‘Community Acuity’ blog posts are from supervisors, to supervisors. They share the thoughts, experiences and reflection of the highs and the challenges of supervising doctoral students.  This is a guest post from Dr Amanda French, Associate Professor, School of Education and Social Work, Birmingham City University. Much of what I do in my supervision sessions is based on what I …

supervising research writing: encouraging group development

This post is by Cally Guerin, senior lecturer at the University of Adelaide, South Australia. She is a co-editor of the DoctoralWriting Blog.  Recently I was involved in a research project aimed at scoping the range and variety of supervisor development programs offered by centralised academic development units in Australian universities. The research uncovered what …

October is coming…

Dear doctoral supervisor, “I was blissfully unaware how long it would take me to write up. To be honest I would have preferred a more clear marker from my supervisor, or from the department, saying stop doing experiments now and write! I was expecting someone to say when I had enough data, because I never felt I …