Train-the-Trainers: Best Practises for PhD supervisor training programs
What is TTT: Train-the-Trainers?
Many universities have started to develop and offer workshops for their doctoral supervisors in response to the increased intake of doctoral candidates and the increased complexity of doctoral education.
However, for workshop trainers it can feel as if entering an unknown territory. Therefore, workshops are designed for those who are seeking sparring, advice, and support on running these supervision workshops.
Questions that are addressed: How do you design a successful supervision workshop? What are effective exercises? Which themes are “need to” and “nice to” include in a supervisor workshop? How to best address research supervisors who are busy academics and potentially a critical group of participants? Is it possible to learn from other trainers and work together instead of reinventing the wheel alone?
Profile of participants and purpose
Those who are developing doctoral supervisor training at their university, or envision doing so in the future. You can be very new to the field and faced with developing your first workshop, or you can be an experienced trainer looking for ideas on how to further develop your supervisor programs.
The purpose is to provide participants with a rich source of knowledge and practice on how to develop, implement, and run doctoral supervisor workshops. It also offers a unique opportunity for participants to share their experiences and to reflect on best practices in their specific institutional context.
Finally, workshop format facilitates a peer-community to support participants’ continuous development as trainers.
Learning outcomes
- Didactical principles for designing high-quality doctoral supervisor workshops and strategies for implementing workshops in different organizational settings.
- Essential themes to address in supervisor workshops.
- Key supervisory models, theories, and tools about roles and relations in supervision, alignment of expectations communication and dialogues, boundary setting and conflict management, and writing and feedback.
- Relevant exercises, group work, and discussions that are aligned with the workshop content and supervisors’ needs.
- How to meet the target group’s demands, including how to prevent and manage resistance.
- Significant scholarly literature in the field of doctoral education and supervision.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme within the framework of the ERA TALENT Project funded under grant agreement No. 101103476.
Project was also supported by Icelandic University cooperation and Icelandic Ministry of Culture, Innovation and Higher Education.