Microsoft Word & supervision meetings

Microsoft Word (MS Word) is the most common software used for written assignments. In fact, in all my supervision experiences the students used MS Word. 

In my supervision activities for example with the MSc Global Health, I work together with the student to ensure that she/he submits a dissertation, which firstly should pass, but ideally achieves more, and this is a co-constructed process (Schreiber & Valle 2013). The latter depends on what the student can input (e.g. time) and wants to get out of their studies. For example, I had one student who was very keen on learning more about academic research and writing, and she considered publishing her dissertation as a journal article. Knowing her aims I worked with her slightly differently by giving her additional feedback on where she would be cutting words (for when she will be writing a journal article), yet I worked with her overall the same way as with all my postgrad students, which is rooted in social constructivism and recognised the agency of the learner and that learning is situated within social processes (Schreiber & Valle 2013, Vygotsky 1986).

In the first meeting, I aim to get to know the student. what topic she/he wants to work on and what the student’s plan and timeline are for the dissertation. For the next supervisory meeting, I usually have already been sent an MS Word document by the student. I employ the ‘comment’ function in MS Word to give feedback on specific sections and then talk the student through my comments in the 2nd meeting. In this second meeting, I also ascertain a feeling of how well the student knows MS Word. Several of my postgraduate students were in their second or third career of their lives, so at least over 30 years of age and working in a paid job alongside their studies. They were using MS Word but had not been taught or did not think of exploring how to use MS Word for writing large documents.

So, in the second supervision session they learn (if they hadn’t used it before) the comment function and I also explain about styles for the headers and the navigation pane, which is a shortcut to jump between the sections of the document. It is important to me that they learn about the heading styles, so they can successfully use them in their writing. These heading styles should not only help the student structure their work, but also help me to review their work more quickly as I can jump between the sections. The feedback I have received from the students on learning how to navigate their document quickly was highly positive as they could see benefits for the dissertation but also for when using MS Word in their daily paid work.

Now reflecting on what role technology plays in our supervision meetings, I can see how I am moving from a previous ‘deterministic view’ towards an ‘instrumentalist position, yet I do not think a dualistic perspective (instrumentalist/deterministic) alone supports the discourse on education and technology and a more critical approach on the terminology used should be held (Bayne 2015). But to explain the historical dualistic positions: in the instrumentalist view, technological artefacts are seen as neutral tools, which is opposite to the deterministic view, where technological artefacts are the drivers for cultural and historical change (Waelbers, 2011; Bayne 2015).

I can see how (digital) technologies are a lot more entangled in our lives and interactions, and that they can become a driving force in itself as they present an expression of one’s identity with the use choices we make (Taricani 2007, Waelbers, 2011).

I can further see how our online supervisory meetings cannot be separated from the networks of human, non-human things such as materials or software, and that from these networks certain practices can be identified as ‘learning’ based on the value judgement of having learned something worthwhile (Fenwick et al 2011).  

In my example around the use of MS Word in the supervision meetings, many students gave overwhelmingly positive feedback of having learned ‘more’ than just what they needed to achieve their dissertation, such as using MS Word efficiently or how to improve their academic writing.

One student wrote unprompted: “Thank you so much for your kind assistance so far. Honestly, I learnt a lot about academic writing through your support."

Another student who had just found out that they had passed their dissertation wrote: Good evening, Marianne; I hope you are well. I want to use this opportunity to thank you for all the support you gave me. I can't find the right word to show my gratitude. I hope to see you someday, maybe during my graduation."

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