Consistently Check Your Student’s Progress
Day 049. A tiny but consistent task is better than a huge but inconsistent task
It’s another amazing Saturday — the second off-day of the weekend. Since I was small, Saturday was always my favourite day. Maybe because it’s an off-day and sometimes when I was a school student, many co-curricular activities were conducted on a Saturday.
As I grew bigger, Saturday is a day to wait mainly because numerous Premier league soccer matches were held on Saturday. Saturday is also a day when our family will gather or we visited my parents at their home, or we bring them for a nice dinner in a new restaurant.
As for today (18th February 2023 — Saturday), we had a wedding lunch invitation nearby our home, just 2 blocks away. It’s always nice to attend a wedding as we are usually served with delicious special cuisine. We also get to meet new people, and new friends, and sometimes met long-lost friends and relatives too.
Ops… I wanted to write about something else.
My Weekly Progress Check
This Saturday, I reviewed my Ph.D weekly progress. It’s an off day but I decided to take a few minutes to perform a brief but detailed check on two of my Engineering Education Ph.D student's progress.
This has been my habit and strategy since 8 years ago. This is my style as a supervisor. Every supervisor has their own style.
Dr. Asmadi, my colleague at my workplace once shared that his Japanese supervisor makes it a point to meet up with his students every morning as they start working and every evening before they go home.
Wow!
That’s so intense and scary. Meeting and reporting progress to the supervisor twice a day could be overwhelming and stressful. Well, that’s that supervisor’s style.
For me, my style is fixed at my research students must submit a progress report every Sunday to me (some emailed me on Saturday and some on Monday).
The main reason for doing that is that I’m not always at the lab or faculty. I have an administration post that I have to take care of. It’s tough for me to have a regular consistent meetings with them during office hours.
Usually, I can allocate once a month for meeting them. But we constantly communicate via email or Whatsapp.
But, the real deal on ensuring they work is by them sending me their research progress in the form of a Research Proposal or Research Thesis.
By doing that, I can ensure that I monitor the evolution of their research from the beginning to the end of their semester.
What do you think?
What do you think of my style? Is it cool? Is it professional?
Many of my students think and like my style. They don’t have to meet me but just ensured they update their progress weekly.
Some of my students also managed to publish in reputable journals and present at international conferences. The amazing part is that this really works for undergraduate student research.
Imagine undergraduate students publishing their work in journals. That’s simply brilliant! Awesome!
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