How to manage your supervisor

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How to manage your supervisor

• Tennie Videler
• Vitae Programme Manager researchers

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Vitae
Champions the personal, professional and career
development of doctoral researchers and research
staff.

• Website www.vitae.ac.uk
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About me
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New What do researchers do?first destinations
of doctoral graduates by subject (WDRDS)
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All physical sciences and engineering, types of
work
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Computer science, types of work
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What do researchers do? Career profiles of
doctoral graduates
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Session outline

• Communication
• Who can help?
• The supervisors role
• The students role
• Plan for managing your supervisions
• Assertiveness Techniques for student-supervisor
  interactions
• Summary

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Exercise 1..
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Who can help?
Second supervisor Postgraduate tutor Other
academics Research staff Librarians Trainers Caree
r advisors
Who else?
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SupervisorMan
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But
they are only human
Perhaps it might help if
they had a bigger brain
or a smaller ego
or extra arms
or a mini me
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Exercise 2 Your perfect supervisor

• In groups of 4 or 5
• Draw your perfect supervisor. (5 minutes)
• Feel free to add genetic modifications Dont
  worry about any discomfort to the supervisors
  make sure that they suit your needs.
• Feed back to group

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Your supervisor and you

• Your supervisor should usually
• ensure that you understand what is expected
• meet you regularly for a formal supervision
• give guidance about literature, training,
  research techniques and academic conventions
• provide constructive feedback on written work
• advise on courses, both specialist and concerning
  transferable skills
• advise you on where to present your work

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Your supervisor and your project

• Your supervisor should usually
• ensure that you are aware of how your research
  fits into any research groups or projects of
  which you are part
• help you to co-ordinate the supervisory team
  responsible for your project
• give feedback on your overall progress
• help you to submit on time
• read and comment on the whole of the final
  thesis.

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Your role

• You should
• undertake research training as agreed
• produce written work as agreed
• comply with reporting procedures
• arrange for informal sharing of information and
  practice
• decide when to submit the thesis and ensure that
  it is submitted on time
• ensure that the thesis complies with regulations.

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Be proactive

• Try to
• find out what is expected
• take the initiative in raising problems or
  difficulties
• help the supervisory team to ensure consistency
• discuss with the supervisory team how to make
  guidance more effective
• agree and organise a mutually convenient schedule
  of meetings

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Managing the Process
Agree a plan of supervisions
Prepare for supervision
Submit work for supervisor to read
Six monthly review of progress
Annual meeting with your thesis committee
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Managing Supervisions

• Produce a written report or piece of written work
  for each supervision.
• Prepare for each supervision, construct an agenda
  for each meeting and send it to your supervisor.
• Take notes during your supervision.
• Summarise decisions made at the end of the
  supervision.
• Send your summary to your supervisor and bring it
  to the next supervision.

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Assertiveness

• Passive Im not okay, youre okay
• Assertive Im okay, youre okay
• Aggressive Im okay, youre not okay

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3 Step Method
Step 1 Show you listen and understand Step
2 Say what you think and feel Step 3 Say what
you want to happen
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3 Step Method
Step 1 Listen and show you understand I
understand that you are very busy and that you
have limited time. Step 2 Say what you think and
feel However, I am feeling very anxious about
whether I am going in the right direction with
this section, and without your feedback I feel
unable to progress further. Step 3 Say what you
want to happen I need you to read this outline in
the next week and tell me if there are any major
omissions, and whether the structure make sense.
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The 5 step method
Step 1 Listen Step 2 Show you understand Step
3 Say what you think and feel Step 4 Say what
you want to happen Step 5 Work on a common
solution
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Other techniques

• The broken record
• stick to your point until you are heard
• Fogging
• acknowledge feelings
• agree without commitment
• helps to promote calm communication

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Role play practice
Student Scenario youve been working on a
particularly challenging bit of coding for the
last few weeks. You have got quite stuck and
think that you need a bit of input in order to
make any further progress but your supervisor
seems to be avoiding you. You have emailed
reminders and got no response. You resolve to go
to see your supervisor to try and make an
appointment to discuss this later on in the week.

• Supervisors Response
• Im very busy.
• Im just off to a conference, Ill see you when
  I get back
• Im trying to get a paper written before I leave
• Why dont you leave the coding and do a bit of
  literature searching
• You really need to be more independent - work it
  out.

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Role play practice
In groups of three, take turns in taking on the
role of the supervisor, student and observer.
Student role practise using the 3 step method
and broken record to ask your supervisor for what
you need. Supervisor role try to make it
difficult for the student by focusing on how busy
you are and how difficult it will be to fulfil
the request Observer role watch the interaction
of the student and supervisor so you can provide
feedback on what you think worked well.
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If things go wrong

• Talk to your supervisor bring the problem into
  the open
• Try and analyse the situation and work out what
  is going wrong
• Gather advice from those around you
• Constructive complaining
• Know your rights

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Take home messages

• Your supervisor is only human, but usually has
  your best interest at heart.
• You need to be proactive to make the most out of
  your supervisor
• Remember your supervisor is only one source of
  help and support
• If you have problems deal with them quickly.