Supervision Is Also about Addressing the Group Dynamics

An important aspect of the problem based and project organized study at Aalborg University is the supervision of the project groups. At the basic education (first year) it is stated in the curriculum that part of the supervisors’ job is to deal with group dynamics. This is due to the experience that many students are having difficulties with practical issues such as collaboration, communication, and project management. Most supervisors either ignore this demand, because they do not find it important or they find it frustrating, because they do not know, how to supervise group dynamics. This problem is not only found at Aalborg University but also at the engineering colleges in Denmark. For that reason a course was developed with the aim of addressing the problem and showing, how it can be dealt with. So far the course has been offered several times to supervisors at the engineering colleges as well as at Aalborg University. The first visible result has been participating supervisors telling us that the course has inspired them to try supervising group dynamics in the future. This paper will explore some aspects of supervising group dynamics as well as, how to develop the Aalborg model in terms of staff development.