Collaborative HDR supervision: working with a school-based cohort

While many educators and school leaders choose to undertake post-graduate study, this is often done with little tangible support or acknowledgement from their employer. A regional school in south-east Queensland  has partnered with the University of Southern Queensland to offer staff a higher degree research pathway within their school's professional development program. Building upon the school’s implementation of action-research driven Professional Learning Teams, the ‘PhD PLT’ offers staff the opportunity to gain further formal qualifications (MRES or PhD) with support from the school, which aims to foster a community of learners. This also presents an opportunity for the university to implement a collaborative supervision model, which provides greater opportunities to ECRs to gain substantial supervisory experience. This presentation will share the partnership model as a concept, and reflect on its early progress. 

Building upon a systematic literature review of HDR supervision models, this presentation will position the partnership model within the landscape of current supervision practices, to understand how more collaborative and cohort-centred HDR supervision models may support both intial and sustained engagement with higher degree research by teachers and leaders within their workplace. The session will also share informal feedback from the teacher-researchers, which suggests in this early phase that the additional support and collegial exchange offered by a partnership approach is a key factor in their decision to engage in higher-degree research.