ABSTRACT

This chapter is about an aspect of PhD student supervision from the student’s perspective. As that student, I had worked for several years in the teaching profession before returning to university to reflect on my classroom experiences. The story itself centers on 6 months of collaboration between the supervisor, Peter, a university-based mathematics educator, and the PhD student, myself, the collaborating high school mathematics teacher. The collaborative effort was not directly relevant to my study program but developed from a mutual interest in understanding ways of learning in a classroom. The collaboration proved to be a difficult time for me, more so after the event than during, as I tried to cope with the unanticipated dilemmas of acting out different roles for different masters. The story touches on issues for PhD students, on the role of research, and on assumptions about teaching, research methods, students, and collaborative practice. In particular the dilemma of being both professional teacher and postgraduate student was personified by a power struggle within myself, between the institutions of university and school, and between supervisor and “student.” The story is reflective in that 3 years have passed since the collaboration. During this time I have had time to assess the consequences.