Hello!
At ETH Zürich, doctoral students are highly encouraged to take on teaching duties during their studies and develop valuable skills in educating and mentoring other students. Usually, this occurs either by contributing as a Teaching Assistant (TA) in a course lectured by the supervising Professor and/or by hosting student projects (Bachelor and Master Thesis, Semester Projects, Internships) to support their research project. In my case, I have the chance to be involved in both ways. In this post, I would like to share some of the lessons I have gathered in the past year from these experiences.
1. Managing workload and expectations
2. Accountability and availability
Managing workload and expectations
When planning classroom activities or a student project with a clearly defined duration, the assignments must be engaging and challenging. However, these should be designed with the anticipated students’ level of experience in mind so they do not become overwhelming, leading to high pressure and a demotivating and frustrating learning process.
In the course I participate as a TA, a colleague and I organise a series of programming workshops to give students a glimpse into the computational tools typically used in bone research. But, since we have a rather multidisciplinary audience from Biology to Biomedical and Mechanical Engineering, the level of coding experience is equally diverse, from absolute beginners to very experienced. These circumstances guide the arrangement of the teams and push us to find effective ways to communicate our message about the goals and assignments and clarify the questions that inevitably arise.
A similar situation happens during student projects, although at a more individual level. Generally, the doctoral student prepares a project that can be adjusted to the student’s interest or experience. The approved project must balance the student’s educational aims and the advisor’s scientific needs while giving the student space to drive and take ownership of the project. Ultimately, I feel that this is a skill developed through practice and that helps to gauge the challenges of a project and assess how the competencies of each contributor can be maximised to reach a successful outcome.
Accountability and availability
Next, I would like to reinforce the role of the advisor or TA in the learning process of the students. Since the former is generally responsible for designing the assignments or projects and usually have more experience in the topic, these must also be accountable for the outcome and the ability to foresee potential issues. In other words, although students should make an effort to complete their tasks and should be the primary driver pushing their project, the TA or advisor must be available to support the progress as needed.
I genuinely believe that being present fosters a more productive working environment, even for students who work very independently. There are constantly new topics worth exploring in scientific research, and promoting such interactions with motivated students can lead to a very positive experience for both parties. Recalling the purpose of engaging in teaching duties, providing value to students should be a primary objective of the advisors and support the planning and execution of their projects.
Giving feedback
Another essential skill in any supervision role is the ability to provide constructive feedback. While in my TA role, this is typically performed per group and per assignment, in student projects, it is a continuous process arising from daily interactions. By designing a task with clear goals and based on open communication of what should be achieved, it is generally easier to identify which parts may need improvement. Again, since the goal is to educate students about a topic, our feedback should go beyond highlighting an issue and, ideally, incorporate possible steps or suggestions to improve the situation. Ultimately, allowing the student to find solutions for the project challenges also helps to build their independence.
From my experience, it is also helpful to discuss the supervising or tutoring experiences with other colleagues to gain perspective on the difficulty and demand they put into their proposed tasks and their approach to grading and project evaluation.
Documenting and reporting
At last, I would like to reinforce the importance of keeping a detailed logbook of all work. Reproducibility is of paramount importance in scientific research, and keeping clear records of the steps performed in a study is a great way to support this idea. Indeed, if there will be another student project building upon previous work, any information on the methods and results achieved is utterly beneficial to help newcomers get up to speed. Additionally, from a supervisory standpoint, it supports the grading of the student project or assignment by showing precisely what and how each task was completed.
On a personal level, there have been multiple instances where I had to pause a project for a few weeks or months to work on a more urgent matter. It is astonishing how having such records helped me resume my work smoothly instead of spending time revising and finding the last challenge at hand. Furthermore, it helps me understand which information is essential for future reference, leading to more detailed logbooks.
As I have described before, I keep my personal hub on Notion, where I integrate my projects’ notes and those from the student projects I supervise or from the lecture where I am a TA. I can easily link pages related to the same research aim, and it also facilitates sharing and collaborating with each student by having a dedicated sub-page for each project that students can return to while preparing their report and presentation.
Conclusion
These are some of my takeaways from being a project advisor and TA during my first year as a doctoral student. I genuinely believe that learning to support and advise others is as valuable as being a competent employee, especially when working in teams. From an educational perspective, I enjoy sharing these practices with students, and as a new semester is about to start, I intend to keep learning and growing and improving my skills. Please feel free to share your thoughts and learning experiences!
Have a great day!