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SDU UP | December 2024

Newsletter December 2024: TAL2024 – supervision

In its 2030 strategy, SDU aims to create even better and more stimulating research environments. The approach to supervision of Bachelor's, Master's, and PhD students should therefore be deliberate, informed, and evidence-based. This year's TAL conference provided good suggestions on approaches to supervision that can help achieve the desired development.

By Lotte Dyhrberg O'Neill, ldo@sdu.dk and Rie Troelsen, riet@sdu.dk, 12/17/2024

On November 7th, SDU UP once again hosted the annual Teaching for Active Learning (TAL) conference for staff from SDU, University Colleges in the Region of Southern Denmark, and interested staff from other national universities and educational institutions. In addition to the standing theme (active teaching and active learning), this year's conference focused on the supervision of students' assignments and theses. This time, SDU UP had invited Gitte Wichmann-Hansen, who is a professor at the University of Agder in Norway, a senior researcher at DPU, Aarhus University, and owner of the consultancy firm Academic Supervision, to be the keynote speaker at the conference.

The topic is important and timely, especially considering SDU's 2030 strategy, where the goals include improving the quality of research and strengthening research integration in education by developing 'excellent research environments which stimulate talent development, and ambitious researchers and students'. Creating stimulating research environments for bachelor's, master's, and PhD students is also very much about being able to provide supervision, which strikes the right balance between steering the research process in a good direction, so that it results in an assignment or thesis of the highest possible quality within the given timeframe, while at the same time supporting the development of the student's independence. 
 
 Therefore, the morning keynote by Gitte Wichmann-Hansen was precisely about the central challenge of authority and autonomy in supervision of students’ academic work. Gitte delivered a very interesting presentation, based on new world-class supervision research, much of which was also her own research. New research has, for example, shown that the most independent students are those who receive guidance that is very advisory and less controlling. Conversely, the most satisfied students are those who receive guidance that is both very advisory and very controlling! You can read more about these findings in the article 'Can hands-on supervision get out of hand?' in the box to the right. In her presentation, Gitte also described concrete strategies and techniques, which supervisors can use to develop students' independence. She also raised an important caveat about how external pressures could work against supervision for student autonomy. 

The topic of the afternoon keynote was collective supervision, which, in addition to making supervision more efficient, also has the potential to promote student progression, active participation, and learning, while also being more enjoyable and less stressful for supervisors. Here, Gitte gave several examples of how supervisors can solve some of the challenges inherent in this form of supervision. She also gave us several concrete tools and resources for planning and implementing collective supervision, such as tips on how to organize supervision meetings with peer feedback, and how to align expectations with students in connection with collective supervision via a ‘supervisor letter’ (see example in the box to the right). Gitte's slides from the conference are almost self-explanatory, and they can be accessed via the box to the right.
 
Between the morning and afternoon keynotes, the conference participants themselves contributed with very fine presentations, which you can read more about in the box to the right, which links to the conference's Book of Abstracts. Among other things, there were inspiring experiences with a current theme, namely AI in supervision here from presenters from SDU, which the contributors have promised to elaborate on in the upcoming conference publication. We look forward to reading more about it and to sharing it with those of you who did not hear the presentations. The morning keynote ended by speculating on whether the emergence of AI will require more or less autonomy from our students now and in the future. Fortunately, the uplifting answer came from several of the participant presenters who had tried AI in supervision in practice. They showed how supervision can be organized so that AI becomes a constructive co-player in supervision through the incorporation of tailored learning activities which ensure students' independent and critical use of AI.

 
 
Responsible for this month's newsletter

Lotte Dyhrberg O'Neill

Responsible for this month's newsletter
Rie Troelsen

Rie Troelsen

TAL2024 – Can hands-on supervision get out of hand?

Read this important paper (in English) on authority and autonomy in supervision

Click here

TAL2024 – Supervisor letters

Find an example of a supervisor letter (in Danish) used to align expectations in connection with collective supervision

Click here

TAL2024 – Keynote slides

Find Gitte Wichmann-Hansen’s slides on authority and autonomy in supervision (opening keynote) and on collective supervision (closing keynote) here

Click here

TAL2024 – Book of Abstracts

Find the descriptions of workshops, presentations, and posters in the Book of Abstracts from the TAL2024 conference webpage.

Click here

Editing was completed: 17.12.2024