Researcher Development Programme (RDP) course timetable

This course is most effective to 1st year researchers who are at least 3-4 months into their PhD.

It’s that time of year, the report is looming on the horizon and the reality of writing is here!

Aimed at 1st year PhD students this course is designed to get you thinking and working effectively on your end of first year report/CPGS. How do you start? What’s expected? How do you make it work for you? These and many other important questions, hints and tips will be addressed in this half day session.

This introductory workshop examines the processes of preparing and giving lectures. It will encourage you to consider what makes a good lecture and what lecturing is for.

*Please note that this course is not aimed at PhD students*

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.

Editing your academic writing can be a challenge: so often we "can't see the wood for the trees". By equipping you with practical strategies for editing your own writing, this half-day course aims to improve your confidence in academic editing.

You must bring a draft piece of academic work in order to practice the exercises.

Outcomes:

• Understand what academic writing is
• Know how rhetoric works in English
• Develop strategies to help you edit your academic writing

Why this course might make a difference:

This course is designed to equip participants with skills to finish their PhD successfully and move on to the next stage of their careers.

By the end of this course you will know:

• What are the PhD submission requirements and when the deadlines are
• How to be a (better) leader
• How to prepare and what to expect from your Viva
• How to do decide what to do next

Topics covered:

• PhD submission process
• Leadership: Skills and qualities of leaders
• Viva: What to expect and how to prepare
• Careers: How to do decide what to do, different career options

Whether you’re new to presenting, looking to speak at your first conference, or wanting important tips to finesse your delivery, this is the course for you.

The course is in two parts:

• Once you book on the course you will receive the pre-workshop information on how to prepare an effective presentation.

• Before attending a face-to-face session you will have to prepare a 5 minute presentation. You will deliver your presentation to the rest of the participants and receive feedback.

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

It’s that time of year, the report is looming on the horizon and the reality of writing is here!

Aimed at 1st year PhD students this course is designed to get you thinking and working effectively on your end of first year report/CPGS. How do you start? What’s expected? How do you make it work for you? These and many other important questions, hints and tips will be addressed in this half day session.

This course will be delivered by the University’s Research Governance and Integrity Officer and will introduce researchers to research integrity and ethics at Cambridge. The course will:

• explore the issue of research misconduct in academia and facilitate discussion of why and how it occurs
• explain the recent research integrity agenda and examine how this effects researchers
• discuss some of the challenges to the integrity of research and ask what individuals, groups and institutions can do to tackle them
• introduce the University’s research ethics system
• use case studies and discussion exercises to examine key issues

This course is most effective to 1st year researchers who are at least 3-4 months into their PhD.

It’s that time of year, the report is looming on the horizon and the reality of writing is here!

Aimed at 1st year PhD students this course is designed to get you thinking and working effectively on your end of first year report/CPGS. How do you start? What’s expected? How do you make it work for you? These and many other important questions, hints and tips will be addressed in this half day session.

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

Meetings can be very important and they can also be very frustrating. This workshop is aimed at everyone who attends meetings and feels a need to make them more effective. The workshop includes presentation and discussion but is largely made up of group exercises, most in the form of meetings, revealing the main learning points.

Topics covered include:

• Meetings as a personal development platform
• Understanding and practising the meeting process
• Techniques for coming to an objective decision
• Dealing with different personality types
• The role of the Chairman

By virtue of being at the interface between the known and the unknown, Research seems to be inherently stressful. The overall aim of this half-day course is, therefore, to help you build your emotional resilience by focussing on its 4 Cs: Coping, Commitment, Challenge, Control. By the end of the course: participants will know and develop effective coping strategies and learn about how to increase their commitment, challenge and control of their research.