I'd like to take this opportunity to give feedback on the feedback that the students gave on their feedback.
With me? No?
The Honours students gave their proposal talks last week. A random panel of academics assessed and made written comments that were passed on to the students on Monday. The students in turn had their own comments about the talks and the feedback process.
They brought up three things:
- They feel rather humiliated if their supervisor 'answers' a question for them
- They feel embarrassed if academics start to 'squabble' with each other over issues raised in their presentation
- They really appreciate it when academics write legibly
This point is completely fair. If a supervisor feels the need to answer a question on behalf of a student, then (assuming the student hasn't completely frozen) this betrays a lack of confidence in the student, or even the project itself (and I'm not going to expand on that here, he said, darkly).
It's part of the training: the student must be able to fend for themself, and, ultimately, make mistakes and live with them.
This one is less clear-cut. Rightly or wrongly, academics in seminars will disagree with each other, vocally and at length, while the speaker stands there like a lemon. Often you will find that certain antagonists have hated each other for years, and their feud spills over into public fora.
My advice? Either stand there looking amused or say something like "Maybe you two can talk about this later?" Coming from a student, that would be surprisingly effective.
Fair cop, guv. In our defence I will say that when you have 7 or 8 talks per session, it's dark, and there isn't much room on the form, copperplate can go right out the window.
Besides, would you trust a doctor with legible handwriting?
