Creating a learning community of students and supervisors: Working on a master’s project

Abstract

A master’s degree includes becoming a specialist in a specific area and achieving a strong professional identity. The master’s project verifies that students can work independently as they strengthen themselves theoretically. They are meant to display evidence of knowing and understanding what lies behind their professionalism. Our experience of supervision has shown that doing the master’s project is a challenge to many students. We, three supervisors at the University of Iceland, School of Education, present our experience of collaborative group supervision that we have been developing for the last six years, from spring 2012 to autumn 2018. We have all in all supervised 74 students that have finished their thesis in this period. The motivation for collaborating in the supervision of master’s students and organising set meetings was our desire to create a learning community of our students and to strengthen each other in the supervisory process. The purpose of the research was to improve our supervisory skills and elicit an understanding of how the process of supervising a group of master’s students was developing. The goal was to gather data about the supervision and our collaboration as we analysed the process and to understand what was happening. We applied the methodology of self-study in educational practices to better understand the students’ progress in the master’s project and our responses to challenges on the way. The theoretical framework builds on the concept of legitimate peripheral participation, learning in landscapes of practice, and ideas of the realistic approach and reflection as self-study methodology emphasizes. The research data consist of supervisors’ written reflections, recordings from meetings, on-line communication with students and TOCs (ticket out of the classroom). The process of analysis was conducted by regularly reading, listening to recordings of data and discussing emerging issues and understandings. At critical points we gathered the data we had produced and wrote rough analyses (memos) and discussed them. It was a cyclical, iterative and interactive process. The data were either regularly or occasionally consulted, gradually drawing out issues and challenges reflected in our own professional theories and our theoretical framework. The methodology and enactment of the meetings and our supervision was influenced by Korthagens and Kessels’ (1999) realistic approach, emphasizing drawing on student experience and then connecting the results with theories. Thus, we elicit their questions and encourage them to reflect on their experiences. We regularly obtained their views, questions and concerns through TOCs, Monday e-mails and by sharing rounds at the meetings. Thus, we obtained information as to where students needed support which they were found to need throughout the process, especially with theories, analysis and writing up the thesis. The results show that students experience regular group meetings as a learning community that supports them in their projects, minimizes loneliness and keeps them going. Their learning in landscapes of practice became more versatile than if we had supervised them individually. Many of the students expressed difficulties in engaging with the theoretical writings, stating that the meetings gave them opportunities to work with equals and share their experiences and writings. Our collaboration increased our awareness of the importance of reminding students, as well as ourselves, of the time students had to complete their work and to keep time at the meetings. Our students have worked on various projects, some focusing on quantitative tasks, some on qualitative aspects; others were involved in action research or developing teaching materials. We concluded that it is more of an asset than a downside that they work on different projects using various methods. When they talk together they gain insights into education from diverse viewpoints and this helps them sharpen their understanding of education. Our different strengths as supervisors were well utilized in the collaboration and our collective efficacy to supervise improved as a result. For the collaboration to work effectively we believe that the supervisors need to have a similar vison on how adults learn. We are not convinced that collaborative supervision takes less time but we use time differently than when supervising individually. At first, we spent more time preparing and planning than we do now. Today, six years later, we need less time for planning but we still need time for reflecting on our practice. We are, however, convinced that students receive more diverse supervising and that we enjoy our work more.