Excellence in teaching

Dr Greg Acciaioli is a lecturer in the Anthropology Discipline Group of the School of Social and Cultural Studies. He received one of the two Excellence in Teaching Awards in the category of Honours Research Supervision in 2000. This award represents a joint effort by the Guild and the University to recognise and reward exemplary teaching.

Supervising honours students is a bit like participating as a sponsor in an initiation. Moving from undergraduate status through this interstitial year to a more empowered status as postgraduates or professionals, honours students are being initiated into the rigours (and joys) of producing an extended essay based on original treatment of research, which should meet the standards of a journal article. Fostering their efforts to achieve this goal requires both academic supervision and friendly coaxing directed to enhancing not only their research and writing skills, but also fostering their self-confidence.

As a supervisor, my first task is to facilitate honours students formulating their own research question as the spine of argumentation in their thesis. Throughout this process I try to keep students focussed on such issues as: What is your basic question? What methods are you going to use to address it? Can you encompass the topic insightfully in approximately 15,000 words? What do you want the reader to get from this thesis?

Honours supervision involves a very different interactional rhythm than work with postgraduates due to the more limited time frame. Accessibility is crucial. However, students differ in regard to what regimen of interaction works best. Some students thrive under constant monitoring, with fixed due dates frequently and evenly spaced for various stages of preparation, usually in the form of specific chapter drafts. Other students work best with long periods of their own reading and thinking punctuated by bursts of writing, which then require feedback as quickly as possible. These issues of timing are matters for negotiation, leading to an explicit pact between us. Email allows not only rapidly returning general comments on draft materials (with more specific annotations written on the printed page), but also suggesting to students in a non-threatening manner that it is time for some more written materials or another face-to-face meeting. Issues of timing are matters for negotiation, leading to an explicit pact between us early in the year.

While I aim to facilitate students completing the best research work of which they are capable at the time, the standard of work that can be achieved differs greatly among students given their differing backgrounds and levels of previous preparation. Part of my own development has been the recognition and acceptance of this diversity. I hope always to instil a critical facility in students, one that allows them to develop their own research skills to evaluate basic and often taken-for-granted approaches and constantly to interrogate their own interpretations and evaluations in any field they choose to enter. However, I also continue to work at understanding the various value attitudes and interactional styles of students from different regions and countries so as not to undermine their confidence in this critical endeavour. I think such goals can only be accomplished by acting not just as an academic evaluator and facilitator, but as a friend offering assistance and support regarding the personal aspects of balancing various commitments during the honours course and subsequently wherever their career paths and other choices may take them.