Excellence in teaching

Philip Cocks is a Professor in the Agricultural Department. He received the Excellence in Teaching - Postgraduate Research Supervision Award in 1999. This award represents a joint effort by the Guild and the University to recognise and reward exemplary teaching.

Postgraduate supervision is very much about students becoming responsible for their own learning. They begin with a good background knowledge of their subject and end by becoming acknowledged experts in their field. Although all graduates of the University of Western Australia have good skills in critical thinking, postgraduates are also able to develop new ideas and place them in a context in which the scholarly community recognises and appreciates their importance. This is a considerable achievement in a person"s life.

To help them do so I try and challenge students to reach the limits of their abilities and to increase their self confidence. Indeed, I regard the attainment of confidence in one's intellectual ability as a primary outcome of postgraduate training. Self confidence and responsibility go hand in hand, and budding scientists must have both.

Science however, also involves rigour, and the scientific method is used to create, test, interpret and publish the results of new research. A good supervisor is also generous in his recognition of students" achievements. By this I mean intellectually generous; the capacity to acknowledge that students may intellectually lead the supervisor and will almost certainly achieve greater knowledge of their subject.

Inspiration is created by sharing with students their own excitement as they come up with new ideas and by encouraging them to share ideas with each other. I do this by holding regular meetings where papers from the literature are discussed, where draft papers from the group are criticised and where students examine each others research proposals. I use papers from the literature to encourage students to learn the gentle art of criticism – they are more inclined to be open in their criticism if the person being criticised is not present. When the comments become unreasonable, or would be hurtful, the group considers how better the comments could be put. We also visit each other's field and laboratory experiments so that each group member is aware of his/her own contribution to the whole.

Inspiration is also injected in face-to-face discussions and when providing feed back of written work. The important thing is to show that you, the supervisor, have thought about the ideas and can contribute to their development. Having said this however, the ideas must remain those of the student: he/she must own them totally. Each student is an individual and should be treated as such.

As far as possible students should publish their results as they become available. Apart from the satisfaction of seeing one's name in print the opportunity for peer review before the final thesis preparation is of great significance. In most journals at least two referees will examine the text, and will make comments and suggestions that invariably improve the manuscript and will often suggest new avenues of research. This process also introduces students to the idea of publishing, so important in the overall philosophy of research.

I believe that students should learn to manage and have responsibility for their own resources. Simply providing them with their needs, which may be good for them in the short term, does not teach them to manage their resources responsibly in the long term. Accordingly, I expect each student to prepare and manage their own budget. After the initial shock of being pronounced trustworthy enough, most students relish the responsibility of handling their resources. They are able to carry funds from one year to the next and even borrow from future budgets should that prove necessary.

Finally, a philosophy of great value to me personally is to co-supervise with scientists from industry and government as much as possible. I find that this helps students in two ways: it exposes them to new ideas and it opens up opportunities for future employment.