Teaching visit by Ms. Roberts, LSE, September 2015.
The workshop conducted by Ms. Roberts was centred on disseminating best practices of instruction and evaluation followed at the LSE, which would hold ISBF in better stead with respect to greater student participation in the classroom and consequently, better grades at the annual UoL examinations. The sessions were focused more on the qualitative subjects in the bouquet of courses offered in the EMFSS programme for International students. Ms. Roberts impressed upon the faculty members present the need to drive home the importance of critical and analytical thinking in approaching questions. The sessions involved her discussing subtleties and specifics ranging from reading the question correctly, spotting the appropriate command word (e.g. Discuss, Explain, Argue, Critically analyse etc) to more substantive issues like the ideal structuring of answers. The emphasis on argumentative structuring laid in the workshop was of immense benefit to all gathered because it alerted the participants to the kind of spikes evaluators look for in answers; consequently, the present faculty members would be better placed to pass on these subtle tricks of structuring to their students. The interactive nature of the workshop meant that faculty members felt comfortable about the learnings and took the improvements suggested in a spirit of intended overall improvement in classroom delivery adding up to better student performance. ISBF expects more such interactive workshops in the foreseeable future to allow for greater convergence of academic ideas, and better percolation of best practices through such enriching cycles of knowledge-flow by eminent LSE personnel.
