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

• Main Authors: Jónsdóttir, Svanborg R., Guðjónsdóttir, Hafdís, Gísladóttir, Karen Rut
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: Icelandic
• Published: Menntavísindasvið Háskóla Íslands 2018
• Subjects: learning communit; master’s project; self-study in educational practices; collaborative group supervision; realistic approach; námssamfélag; meistaraprófsverkefni; starfstengd sjálfsrýni; sameiginleg hópleiðsögn; raunhæf nálgun; Iceland
• Online Access: https://ojs.hi.is/index.php/tuuom/article/view/2881

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 ...