Today's lunch time session was a workshop on supporting or supervising post-graduate students at Ara Insitute of Canterbury. Post-graduate programmes are relatively new at Ara and currently, three programmes are offered. One in Nursing, one in Creative Arts and one in Sustainability Practice.
Talei Howell-Price from events hosted the session. Dr. Michael Shone and myself facilitated the session with Michael providing the overview of definitions, models, guiding principles and Ara policies and resources.
Firstly, Michael shared some definitions post-grad student supervision.
We were supported by two lecturers who presented their perspectives.
- Dr. Tony McCaffrey - brought in his context as a lecturer on the Bachelor of Performing Arts and Post-Graduate Diploma and Master of Creative Practice. He summarised his approach as assisting students to find their voice and identity and to critique their own personality-derived creative performance/practice. It is important for students of creative arts to know where they are from , their turangawaewae (of where they belong) and this is central to their work. There is a balance between engaging the student in critical research and in helping their voice to be heard and articulated.
Explained there are many 'modalities to performance research. Provided a list of 26! Helping students make sense of all of this complexity is an important aspect given that performance research is also a team effort. Students bring their embedded practice, knowledge and experiences of colonialisation, their own cultures' expectations and assumptions. Empathy is an important aspect of supporting the students to 'ask the questions about performance' and not so much to 'find answers' but to enter into a discourse.
- Dr. Allen Hill - Teaches on the Master in Sustainable Practice. Drew on his experiences as research coordinator in his previous position at the University of Tasmania which had 120 post-grad students at a time. One of his roles was to assign supervisors to students and projects and another was to deal with stuff when things went wrong. He cautioned on just depending on one's experiences of being supervised and the need to be critically reflective of the process, and the need to be adequately trained for the role.
Apprenticeship model may not be the best approach as it depends on what students bring, the supervisory team's strengths and the type of project being undertaken. The important thing was to establish communication, and an alignment of expectations, assumptions and shared understanding early on. It is important to be humble, recognise and acknowledge the presence of power relationships, work respectfully and encourage collaborative and reciprocal relationships.
Shared that the supervisory role is one of the most enriching aspects of teaching at post-grad level.
Michael then went through the roles, characteristics, types, expertise required, guiding priciples and Ara policies. It is important to source instructions on the process and allow that the journey is not linear. Supervisor characteristics which are helpful include being available, interested, supportive, providing good and consistent communication, subject (or technical) expertise, career awareness and appropriate conflict resolution skills. A supervisor is a mix of manager, educator and supporter with each role coming up as required through the thesis journey.
Question and answer session closed off the session. All in, a good session to share practice.
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