Supervising Student Independence

“This book is a gift to academic supervisors! Experience the two Swedish authors’ multi-voiced supervision in action: see scaffolding tools; build student independence! Find inspiration; embrace emotions! Sing supervision expectations and open-ended questions with your collegial choir! Enjoy polyphonic divergence; choose supervisor-growth! May the voices in this book guide us to unfold our creative potential in dialogic supervision!” – Randi Benedikte Brodersen, supervisor and teacher of academic writing, University of Bergen, Norway. “Supervision is a core activity in university teachers’ work, stimulating the independence of students. This book provides tools and perspectives on this important effort in order to both favour the work and to enhance students’ independence. The discussions and practical advice are well-grounded in unique and solid research, which is also presented in this highly interesting book for university teachers in all disciplines.” – Mona Blåsjö, Professor of Swedish, Stockholm University, Sweden. This open access book examines the supervision of undergraduate degree projects, with a particular focus on how supervision may contribute to developing student independence and academic literacies. Based on an extensive research project, it uses examples from focus group interviews as well as actual supervision situations, taken from different higher education programmes at several universities in Sweden and Russia. The authors discuss issues such as supervisors’ perceptions and understandings of student independence, the relationship between supervisor and student, the significance of emotions in the supervision process, different supervision tools to foster independence, and the supervisor’s role not only as a guide and helper but also as an assessor of the students’ work. The book will appeal to scholars within the field of teaching and learning in higher education, as well as those from other disciplines who are interested in developing their own supervision practice. Maria Zackariasson is Professor of Ethnology at Södertörn University, Sweden. Jenny Magnusson is Associate Professor of Swedish at Södertörn University, Sweden.