Supervisor Workshop – Tress Academic

Course Description

This course supports supervisors in reflecting on and providing excellent supervision for their PhD candidates. Participants learn how to optimise the relationship between them and their PhD students, including expectation management, leadership styles, and handling of challenging situations. They exchange experiences with colleagues and learn how to organise productive meetings, how to foster independence, and having candid conversations. Participants get advice on the decisive early steps of the relationship between supervisor and PhD student, the supervisory process, timely completion, and tools for evaluating and further developing their supervisory skills.

During the course, supervisors test the application of these tools in practical exercises. They can reflect on what they would like to implement in their personal situations, as well as on an institutional level. At the end of the course, they have a variety of instruments at hand that they can apply directly for improving supervision of their PhD candidates.

The course covers the following topics:

1. International developments in PhD education
2. Biggest problems of PhD students
3. Time to completion
4. Challenges of supervisors
5. Good practice in supervision
6. Developing supervisory styles
7. Enhancing the supervisor-student-relationship
8. Clarifying expectations
9. Setting up supervisory agreements
10. Organising productive supervisory meetings
11. Handling difficult conversations
12. Keeping-up student motivation
13. Monitoring student progress
14. Self-and peer-assessment

Participants
Open for all experienced post-docs up to the professorial level of Swiss TPH and/or the Medical Faculty of the University of Basel. The workshop is tailored to the needs of the participants in that we consider their respective career stages.

Max. 10 participants.

Lecturer

This course is offered by Bärbel Tress (PhD). She is an enthusiastic Research Career Expert, has researched and taught at various universities and research institutes across Europe, served as an Associate Editor for an international peer-reviewed journal, and regularly supervised students herself. For 17+ years, she has coached and advised PhD students from all fields to help them successfully complete their PhD projects on time. She is a graduate of Heidelberg University (D), obtained a PhD in Landscape Ecology from Roskilde University (DK), and worked as a researcher and lecturer at universities in Wageningen (NL) and Aberdeen (UK).

Workload & credits

The course is 1.5 days (approx. 12 hours). You’ll receive a certificate of attendance for this workshop. The workshop may count towards Modul C in the “Basis-Zertifikat Hochschuldidaktik.

Pre-work: online survey 4-6 weeks before the course.