What are your 'top tips' for running a PhD seminar session?

In a PhD seminar session, beside getting students to present their work-in-progress, write & publish articles and presentation skills, following can be included:

1. Value the diversity of learning needs e.g. learners may have different learning styles 2. apply interactive discussion as opposed to passive learning through presentations    3. create a suitable learning environment e.g. by keeping your audience motivated by changing teaching methods every 15-20 minutes;                                                            4. use of informal assessment e.g. written & oral questioning.

 Strawson (2012) 53 Interesting things to do in your seminars and tutorials. Professional & Higher Partnership Ltd. E-book

You can also do the PhD seminar as a research e-clinic as described in the following link.

Best regards,

Debra

Chapter Research e-Clinics: Reducing Lags in the Completion of Gradu...

For a Ph.D seminar to be excellent following tips may be useful.

1) First a student who is giving seminar or defending his thesis should have his fundamental ideas very clear. Many times it happens students follow instructions of their guide blindly without any thinking in his mind .

2) Adequate literature survey is a must. Only survey is not important but the student must be able to grasp. This is important while writing the Introduction chapter of the thesis. Literature study and your work must get co related. If any new finding is there then one should have to have a rational justification for it. During seminar or defense one should be very precise and one should try to make the subject as simple as possible to the audience because there is a every possibility that audience may be of different disciplines for such seminars. one can make subject easy to understand to the audience by using different common examples . That makes the audience cheerful.

3) The graphical presentation is more important than the equations .

4) During conclusion , one should be able to have a link of the earlier work + new findings + rational argument for new findings.

5) in the audience some times very talented questions are asked and the defender must have an adequate knowledge to explain. If  it is not possible then the defender must be honest and polite enough to accept that he or she is not capable of the answer but he or she should show the desire to obtain more knowledge of the question asked and guarantee the audience that defender is open enough for gaining the knowledge/ deeper understanding .

6) One can add humor too while presenting the work. That keeps the defender as well as the audience in a relaxed state. This is a psychological point but it is important . 

The whole class will identify the Theme and with the help of the professor of the said class identify the speakers from the class for the seminar to be conducted. They have to decide for the source of fund/ budget and the responsible person.  Then organize and  identify the different point person responsible to do the concept paper, slider and tarpaulin, communication letters, program and invitation, physical arrangement, food certificates, the kit and registration, documentation and evaluation of the said affair.

Gauging the level at which students are at is crucial here. They need a challenge but do not exceed the potential cognitive potential too much. Paul

#1 Free food. (And  #2 food for thought!)

Know and respect your students

Never be 'superior' or use unnecessary academic jargon

Remember how you felt when writing your thesis and therefore be reflective in your challenges

Celebrate when your student surpasses your knowledge in a specific field. This should be the most exciting part of any PhD journey for both student and Professor

I endorse free food and food for thought (cf Ian). The weighting is just right. Paul

1. I think Ph.D. students need to understand, at an early point, that if they want to continue in academia and have an academic career they already need to think about how they will publish articles from their thesis, even before the entire thesis is done. This division could also help with viewing the thesis not as a mountain but a few smaller hills... 

2. As mentioned before, technical tools are a must - how to write an introduction/lit review, how to lead and later present methodology (some help with statistical advisers could help a lot if it is a quantitative-oriented research), what the differences are between findings, discussion, conclusions and summary, how to write a good abstract, etc.

3. Advise on how to handle the mentor-mentee relationship in a way that is beneficial to both sides. Even - how to choose a mentor or a second mentor (e.g., someone who wants to publish about this subject as badly as you do, someone who is available, etc.).   

for many years i always had a group of higher research degree students of around 6.  Mostly these were PhDs and occasionally Masters by research.  In the first place some PhD students were initially researched on a Masters leading to PhD with the conversion depending on progress.

I always supervised these students as a group.  All students were expected to attend all sessions.  At each session 1 or occasionally 2 students would present their latest work.  All students were expected to comment, criticise and question the work.  This is particularly helpful for methodological issues. At the end of each session we would go around the group to find the student who next wanted to present.  A date would be fixed then.

The advantages of such as system are many,  Students would never let the group down by at the last moment saying they werent ready.  This often happens for individual supervisions.  Students had to learn to present their work clearly even to people unfamiliar with it.  All students had the benefit of seeing work done by other students at all the various stages of the PhD.  We would even hold a session for a completed student to discuss how to present and answer at the viva examination.  More senior students would often be able to suggest how to proceed to the beginners.  This system removes the loneliness of the individual PhD and improves motivation and completion rates.  The students can talk to teach other about their ideas between sessions and feel more part of a research community.

Sometimes hard lessons are more easily learned when discussing another students work rather than trying to defend your own.

When I retired I formed a closed fasbook group for all my ex students from around the world who now frequently discuss ideas there and talk to each other.  Some from different periods in my career have even gone on to meet and even run conferences together.

hi every body

i think seminar is important to build your thesis steps and in our college , higher studies stuff organizes special course for seminar to cover the area of writing besides two preparation courses.   

Hi every body

In each major hot topics are usually the ones presented in the latest issues of the journals related to that major or the latest published books in the field. these kind of sessions can be held each weak regarded that  critically reviewing different parts of the work in the present of  faculty members of the department. This may be called Journal Club sessions for PhD candidates.

The professor should orient the students the objective of conducting seminar and series of seminars so as students identify their title for their dissertation. The focus of the seminar is helping students to start working towards their dissertation by identifying an area of research.

How does one choose seminars for the PhD. Should it be part of the study topic such as a review Literature of several parts of the topic