Training Courses Organized to Enhance the Instructional Capability of Supervisors of Graduate Students
In order to further improve the instructional capability of supervisors of graduate students and enhance the quality of graduate education, Prof. Lo Nai-kwai, Leslie was invited on March 2nd to share his ideas on graduate education in XMU. Prof. Lo is the founding dean of the Faculty Education of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK),a member of the university board, one of Wei Lun Visiting Professors in CUHK, head of Hong Kong Institute of Education, director of Department of Senior Degrees and Courses in the Faculty Education and director of Department of Education in Graduate School in CUHK.
On the morning, Prof. Lo had a meeting with administrative leaders of Graduate School. During the meeting, Tao Tao, executive dean of Graduate School, extended warm welcomes to Prof. Lo and introduced the history and development of degrees and graduate education in XMU, especially the comprehensive reform started at 2014, which had extensively improved the graduation education in XMU. Prof. Lo showed great interest in reform measures taken in graduate training programs, selection of supervisors for doctoral students, research grants for supervisors and scholarship. He appreciated that such reforms were in line with international trend. He then gave a detailed introduction to the management of graduate students in CUHK by presenting graduate courses and assessment methods. They also talked about the assessment of compulsory graduate courses in first-level disciplines and training programs for doctoral supervisors soon to be carried out in XMU.
On the afternoon, Prof. Lo made a lecture titled “Training of Academic Graduate: between Fame and Freedom” in the conference room 220 of Songen Building. The lecture was chaired by Tao Tao and attended by more than 60 new doctoral supervisors from 17 colleges. Prof. Lo shared his teaching experience for the past 35 years. He introduced the doctoral courses, syllabus, and evaluation mechanism in CUHK and took examples to illustrate ten tasks that students in CUHK had to complete before they got their degrees. Prof. Lo also talked about his understanding of the role of doctoral supervisor in terms of how to academically train doctoral students and several types of supervisor-student relationships. He asked professors to think about the meaning of lecturing students.
He proposed that supervisors should guide students in different ways according to their different drives and capabilities. They should pull distracted students or those who attach little importance to academic research back to the normal track, and turn them into “pilgrims” to academic study. Supervisors should make themselves examples to their students by working carefully and helping students to develop their own interest in certain academic fields. He stressed that it was key to identify who had the potential in academic research, and that a good supervisor-student relationship was attributed to the same expectation achieved by early communication between the supervisor and students. After the lecture, many doctoral supervisors consulted Prof. Lo about problems they faced in their work. Prof. Lo kindly offered his suggestions.
At last, Tao Tao, on behalf of all attenders, thanked Prof. Lo once again for his outstanding presentation by which all attenders were inspired. He said that it was one of the series of lectures organized to enhance the instructional capability of doctoral supervisors. The Graduate School would continue to systematize relevant activities, further improve the responsibility system of supervisors, strengthen their moral virtues, regularize their work, optimize their pedagogical methods and enhance their awareness of responsibility so as to upgrade the training program and reform measures of graduate education, and thus to enhance its quality.
