RDP Training 2015-16

Why this course might make a difference: Beginning a PhD can be a daunting experience for many people. It is the transition from being taught to having responsibility for your workload and deadlines.

How do you make a start? Are there specific requirements? What can you expect from your supervisor? These and many other questions will be addressed during the course.

By the end of this course, you will:

• make a draft of your research proposal
• plan a year ahead
• have an action plan (next three months) on what will you do and strategies for carrying it out

Topics covered:

• Defining your research project
• PhD timeline
• You and your supervisor
• Planning and managing your PhD
• PhD skills

Presenting your research to a range of different audiences is a critical skill for postdocs and research staff at any stage of their career. The principal aim of this one-to one session is to help you be a more effective presenter in order to engage with your audience.

By the end of this course, you will:

• Have had the chance to watch a video of yourself presenting
• Receive feedback from the course tutor on your presentation style
• Have had the ‘real time’ opportunity to use the feedback to improve your presentation style

Topics covered:

• How to put together a good presentation
• How to handle fear and anxiety about public speaking
• How to stand out from the crowd to be remembered
• Understanding your audience and how to engage with them

Presenting your research to a range of different audiences is a critical skill for postdocs and research staff at any stage of their career. The principal aim of this one-to one session is to help you be a more effective presenter in order to engage with your audience.

By the end of this course, you will:

• Have had the chance to watch a video of yourself presenting
• Receive feedback from the course tutor on your presentation style
• Have had the ‘real time’ opportunity to use the feedback to improve your presentation style

Topics covered:

• How to put together a good presentation
• How to handle fear and anxiety about public speaking
• How to stand out from the crowd to be remembered
• Understanding your audience and how to engage with them

Presenting your research to a range of different audiences is a critical skill for postdocs and research staff at any stage of their career. The principal aim of this one-to one session is to help you be a more effective presenter in order to engage with your audience.

By the end of this course, you will:

• Have had the chance to watch a video of yourself presenting
• Receive feedback from the course tutor on your presentation style
• Have had the ‘real time’ opportunity to use the feedback to improve your presentation style

Topics covered:

• How to put together a good presentation
• How to handle fear and anxiety about public speaking
• How to stand out from the crowd to be remembered
• Understanding your audience and how to engage with them

Presenting your research to a range of different audiences is a critical skill for postdocs and research staff at any stage of their career. The principal aim of this one-to one session is to help you be a more effective presenter in order to engage with your audience.

By the end of this course, you will:

• Have had the chance to watch a video of yourself presenting
• Receive feedback from the course tutor on your presentation style
• Have had the ‘real time’ opportunity to use the feedback to improve your presentation style

Topics covered:

• How to put together a good presentation
• How to handle fear and anxiety about public speaking
• How to stand out from the crowd to be remembered
• Understanding your audience and how to engage with them

This course aims to unleash the creativity within you so you can apply it to your research and find new ways to tackle old challenges.

At the end of the course you will:

• Understand more about what makes us creative and what stops our creativity
• Know some simple tools to improve your creativity toward problem solving
• Have applied the creative approaches to solve a challenge of your own

Topics covered:

• What is creativity?
• What is innovation?
• Why do we become less creative as we get older?
• Creativity exercises
• Creativity tools
• Convergent and divergent thinking
• Applying creativity to your challenge

The overall aim of these one-to-one sessions is to help you identify the skills you would like to develop to be more effective both during and after your PhD. Topics covered include: evaluating your current skill levels; identifying the areas you wish to focus on to create a tailored development plan.

The overall aim of these one-to-one sessions is to help you identify the skills you would like to develop to be more effective both during and after your PhD. Topics covered include: evaluating your current skill levels; identifying the areas you wish to focus on to create a tailored development plan.

The overall aim of these one-to-one sessions is to help you identify the skills you would like to develop to be more effective both during and after your PhD. Topics covered include: evaluating your current skill levels; identifying the areas you wish to focus on to create a tailored development plan.

The overall aim of these one-to-one sessions is to help you identify the skills you would like to develop to be more effective both during and after your PhD. Topics covered include: evaluating your current skill levels; identifying the areas you wish to focus on to create a tailored development plan.

Why this course might make a difference: Beginning a PhD can be a daunting experience for many people. It is the transition from being taught to having responsibility for your workload and deadlines.

How do you make a start? Are there specific requirements? What can you expect from your supervisor? These and many other questions will be addressed during the course.

By the end of this course, you will:

• make a draft of your research proposal
• plan a year ahead
• have an action plan (next three months) on what will you do and strategies for carrying it out

Topics covered:

• Defining your research project
• PhD timeline
• You and your supervisor
• Planning and managing your PhD
• PhD skills

Designed specifically for Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (AHSS) postdocs and researchers at an early stage of their career with little or no experience of reviewing manuscripts for journals. Focus is on subjects covered by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Economic and Social Research Council.

The peer-review system helps to ensure the quality of published research. Journal editors are therefore reliant on experts who can deliver independant reviews in a timely fashion. The ability to review manuscripts should be a core skill of every researcher. But how long should you spend reviewing a manuscript? What should you write in your review? Find out with the results from a survey of 60 editors of AHSS journals.

By learning how to review research manuscripts for journals you will:

• gain a core skill that every AHSS researcher should have
• free up more time for your own research
• develop a better understanding of how to write your own manuscripts

Topics covered:

• how the peer-review system works
• about your responsibilities as reviewers
• what editors expect in a review
• how to critically evaluate a research manuscript
• what to include in written comments to editors and authors
• how long you should spend reviewing a manuscript
• practical methods for reviewing a manuscript quickly.

Why this course might make a difference:

Looking back at your experience of education you can probably remember those teachers and lecturers who were excellent. We remember the ones who were good because they have left a lasting impact on us; shaping both our learning in the past and our approach to teaching at Cambridge. Supervising undergraduate students at Cambridge can be one of the most rewarding activities for PhDs and Postdocs and this course is designed to make sure that you can offer your best and hopefully be one of those memorable teachers for someone else.

A blended workshop incorporates personal reflection on teaching practice, discussion of real teaching scenarios, a chance to ask questions from an experienced supervisor and access to practical information about organising and carrying out your supervisions.

This training is required by many colleges before you can carry out supervisions and is always a popular course.

About the trainer:

The course trainer is Dr Ben Murton who has over 12 years of teaching experience in Cambridge and was an undergraduate here as well. He is now a College Teaching Associate at St John's, a tutor on the Teaching Associates Programme and offers supervision coaching for Life Sciences supervisors.

If you have any specific questions you are welcome to contact him before the course on Ben.Murton@admin.cam.ac.uk

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is the most widely used personality instrument worldwide, based on over 50 years’ research and development.

It presents a framework for understanding how you operate, how others operate, and how you can use that understanding to get more from yourself and the relationships you have with others.

This workshop is led by a qualified MBTI practitioner and will involve taking the MBTI questionnaire, and self-assessment with group exercises so that participants:

• Understand the concept and theories behind the MBTI types and the process to obtain a personal profile
• Use the self-assessed and reported types to determine their best fit MBTI type (or as close as possible)
• Can use their MBTI knowledge in activities relating to real world applications such as communication and understanding differences

Topics:

• MBTI questionnaire
• MBTI history, background, and theory of type
• Self-assessment through the exploration of the four areas of MBTI
• Questionnaire scoring
• Finding best fit and exploring own type
• Ethics of MBTI
• Applications of MBTI
• MBTI dynamics
• Exploration of mental functions
• Q & A

Why this course might make a difference:

Looking back at your experience of education you can probably remember those teachers and lecturers who were excellent. We remember the ones who were good because they have left a lasting impact on us; shaping both our learning in the past and our approach to teaching at Cambridge. Supervising undergraduate students at Cambridge can be one of the most rewarding activities for PhDs and Postdocs and this course is designed to make sure that you can offer your best and hopefully be one of those memorable teachers for someone else.

A blended workshop incorporates personal reflection on teaching practice, discussion of real teaching scenarios, a chance to ask questions from an experienced supervisor and access to practical information about organising and carrying out your supervisions.

This training is required by many colleges before you can carry out supervisions and is always a popular course.

About the trainer:

The course trainer is Dr Ben Murton who has over 12 years of teaching experience in Cambridge and was an undergraduate here as well. He is now a College Teaching Associate at St John's, a tutor on the Teaching Associates Programme and offers supervision coaching for Life Sciences supervisors.

If you have any specific questions you are welcome to contact him before the course on Ben.Murton@admin.cam.ac.uk

If you’re feeling lost and uncertain about writing your 1st year report – or if you want to become a more effective writer – the course has two objectives in its overall aim of helping you improve the writing of your research:

1) To help you understand:

• the requirements of the 1st year report;
• the writing process;
• your work patterns as a writer.

2) To help you progress your writing, by working through the techniques and topics of:

• Writing warm-ups, to quell your internal editor so you write more freely
• Writing in layers to help you develop an overall structure to your thesis, so that writing feels less daunting and you take a step towards procrastinating.

This course complements the supervising training and information your Department will provide. It is a course that consists of: online material introducing the basics of undergraduate teaching in Cambridge; a face-to-face workshop, that is based on discussions and group activities; and follow-up online material that consolidates what you have learned so far.

By the end of this course you will know:

• the purpose of supervisions at Cambridge
• how to deal with common supervision scenarios
• how to provide effective feedback
• the practicalities of starting to supervise

Topics covered:

Stage 1 – Online

• Introduction to supervising (including what supervisions are, format, preparing for them)
• Background information for those who need it (British education system, Cambridge undergraduate system)

Stage 2 - Face-to-face workshop

• Role of a supervisor
• Dealing with different supervision scenarios
• Departmental information

Stage 3 – Online

• Summary of what you have learnt
• Practical tips and advice
• Resources for ongoing support and information

The overall aim of this course is to help you become aware of yours and others’ non-verbal communication, and as a result, be able to identify and use ‘body language’ effectively. To achieve this aim, in this interactive half-day session, participants will develop their understanding of proxemics, rapport to enhance relationships, body positioning to be credible and approachable, and visual aids.

Presenting your research to a range of different audiences is a critical skill for postdocs and research staff at any stage of their career. The principal aim of this one-to one session is to help you be a more effective presenter in order to engage with your audience.

By the end of this course, you will:

• Have had the chance to watch a video of yourself presenting
• Receive feedback from the course tutor on your presentation style
• Have had the ‘real time’ opportunity to use the feedback to improve your presentation style

Topics covered:

• How to put together a good presentation
• How to handle fear and anxiety about public speaking
• How to stand out from the crowd to be remembered
• Understanding your audience and how to engage with them

Presenting your research to a range of different audiences is a critical skill for postdocs and research staff at any stage of their career. The principal aim of this one-to one session is to help you be a more effective presenter in order to engage with your audience.

By the end of this course, you will:

• Have had the chance to watch a video of yourself presenting
• Receive feedback from the course tutor on your presentation style
• Have had the ‘real time’ opportunity to use the feedback to improve your presentation style

Topics covered:

• How to put together a good presentation
• How to handle fear and anxiety about public speaking
• How to stand out from the crowd to be remembered
• Understanding your audience and how to engage with them

Presenting your research to a range of different audiences is a critical skill for postdocs and research staff at any stage of their career. The principal aim of this one-to one session is to help you be a more effective presenter in order to engage with your audience.

By the end of this course, you will:

• Have had the chance to watch a video of yourself presenting
• Receive feedback from the course tutor on your presentation style
• Have had the ‘real time’ opportunity to use the feedback to improve your presentation style

Topics covered:

• How to put together a good presentation
• How to handle fear and anxiety about public speaking
• How to stand out from the crowd to be remembered
• Understanding your audience and how to engage with them

Presenting your research to a range of different audiences is a critical skill for postdocs and research staff at any stage of their career. The principal aim of this one-to one session is to help you be a more effective presenter in order to engage with your audience.

By the end of this course, you will:

• Have had the chance to watch a video of yourself presenting
• Receive feedback from the course tutor on your presentation style
• Have had the ‘real time’ opportunity to use the feedback to improve your presentation style

Topics covered:

• How to put together a good presentation
• How to handle fear and anxiety about public speaking
• How to stand out from the crowd to be remembered
• Understanding your audience and how to engage with them

Presenting your research to a range of different audiences is a critical skill for postdocs and research staff at any stage of their career. The principal aim of this one-to one session is to help you be a more effective presenter in order to engage with your audience.

By the end of this course, you will:

• Have had the chance to watch a video of yourself presenting
• Receive feedback from the course tutor on your presentation style
• Have had the ‘real time’ opportunity to use the feedback to improve your presentation style

Topics covered:

• How to put together a good presentation
• How to handle fear and anxiety about public speaking
• How to stand out from the crowd to be remembered
• Understanding your audience and how to engage with them

Presenting your research to a range of different audiences is a critical skill for postdocs and research staff at any stage of their career. The principal aim of this one-to one session is to help you be a more effective presenter in order to engage with your audience.

By the end of this course, you will:

• Have had the chance to watch a video of yourself presenting
• Receive feedback from the course tutor on your presentation style
• Have had the ‘real time’ opportunity to use the feedback to improve your presentation style

Topics covered:

• How to put together a good presentation
• How to handle fear and anxiety about public speaking
• How to stand out from the crowd to be remembered
• Understanding your audience and how to engage with them