Case Studies on Education at LSE

Here you can explore examples of excellent teaching and learning practice across the School.

If you would like to contribute a case study, please send us this completed form.

For various snapshots and good practice examples on current online teaching at LSE, visit our regularly updated gallery page here.

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US Centre - Online Career Masterclasses: preparing students for life after graduation 

US Centre’s Master´s to PhD and Graduate to Professional online masterclasses are designed to support LSE master's students in planning and starting their careers. During the interactive online sessions, students get the exclusive opportunity to learn from LSE PhD Students who are conducting research on US-focused topics or to gain career advice from successful LSE Alumni based in the US. 

19 February 2021


 

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Government - Simulating the production of Social Research for Policy Advice

A new learning activity on GV4F4 (Policy Advice in Theory and Practice) - a simulation of a social research organisation preparing a bid for a local transport policy tender. The activity adds a practical component to GV4F4, a module that introduces MSc students to theory of evidence-based policy making, the science-policy nexus, and policy advice and evaluation tools. 

13 August 2020


 

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Geography and Environment - Political Ecology Field Guide Assessment

Students in GY328 Political Ecology of Development created “Political Ecology Field Guides”, which allowed them to apply the analytical tools developed throughout the course to create an original research product. 

3 August 2020


 

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Health Policy - Vaca Virus simulation on HP412 Global Health Security

This was a one-day simulation activity on the course HP412 (Global Health Security), which recreated the governance decisions of an outbreak of ‘Vaca Virus’ in the country of ‘Esperanza’. The activity unfolded over the course of the day with new information, such as the development of vaccines, civil unrest and community resistance, which each actor had to react to in real time. 

10 June 2020


 

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LSE Faith Centre - Faith and Climate Action Leadership Programme

In 2019 the LSE Faith Centre launched a new leadership programme: ‘Faith and Climate Action’. The team looked at how religious perspectives and faith communities are contributing to climate action, both in terms of the theological inspiration they bring to the conversation and the social capital they can harness to affect change amongst the 80% of the global population who hold a faith. 

7 April 2020


 

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Law - Self-assessment cover sheet for formative work

Encouraging students on LL104 - Law Of Obligations to think for themselves about how marking criteria apply to their work, and to stimulate more active engagement with the formative feedback process.

4 February 2020


 

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Methodology - Developing post-graduate research skills

Combining a blog-post, a project outline and peer-feedback in the formative assignment has equipped students with key graduate attributes focusing on communication, structure, coherence, and self-assessment, as well as creates a feeling of community in Methodology's post-graduate courses.

6 December 2019


 

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Anthropology - Developing undergraduate assessment

The Department of Anthropology recently streamlined the assessment on its undergraduate programme(s). The overall amount of summative assessment has been reduced, and the bottleneck of coursework essays during vacations removed. This streamlining has introduced diversity of assessment formats, but aimed to reduce student stress and build familiarity with the formats by mirroring assessment formats across the years. 

19 November 2019


 

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LSE Library - Feedback activities

The Library team set up a feedback board to ask students how they felt they could support them during exam season. They also set up creative feedback activities, inviting students to create ‘eggmojis’ to express how they felt about using the Library and to create and display poems about the Library with magnetic poetry.

18 November 2019


 

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Economics - The First Year Challenge - creating greater sense of community

The First Year Challenge is an innovative way of creating greater sense of community among first year students and introducing them to the field of economics and LSE heritage. Small groups of students explore London together and, given sets of clues, produce a short video at the end of the project with a prize for the best video.

4 July 2019


 

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European Institute - The diversity of Muslim communities in London

Esra Ozyurek enabled her students to discover the diversity of Muslim communities in London in her Religious Diversity and Conflict in Europe course (EU475).

31 May 2019


 

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Language Centre - En un Lugar en Londres

En un lugar de Loñdres (In a certain place in London) is a research-based project which aims at developing language learning and increasing sociolinguistic awareness through the observation and contextualization of London’s Spanish linguistic landscapes on-land and online. Learners are encouraged to wander the city and to engage with the people behind those linguistic landscapes.

This is an update to an initial case study posted in September 2017.

2 April 2019


 

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Language Centre - Interviewing London's French speakers

Students must find and interview a French speaker in London, then write up the interview and create a piece of ‘digital storytelling’ from it. The activity develops multiple student skills: interviewing, writing an article (similar to a magazine or newspaper), and editing video and/or audio with a student voiceover and other visual/audio elements – a deliberately creative assessment.

18 March 2019


 

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Methodology - GitHub

We introduced the free online repository and version control service GitHub to share course materials, submit summative assessment, and provide feedback for most of the computational methods courses at the Department of Methodology. This innovation enables learning-by-doing and facilitates collaboration.

5 March 2019


 

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Statistics - Research Internships

During 2017 and 2018 I carried out two research projects in collaboration with two 3rd year undergraduate students. Both projects were aimed at supervising and developing an undergraduate student’s interest in research. 

19 February 2019


 

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Mathematics - Exam feedback through script viewing

We gave undergraduate students examination feedback by allowing them to view their marked unseen written examination scripts, with full solutions available in advance and with the examiners present at the sessions.

19 February 2019


 

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Statistics - MSc Data Science capstone project

We introduced a capstone project module in our MSc in Data Science programme, which enables our students to apply the knowledge gained in our programme to real-world data science projects, by working in collaboration with capstone project partners. 

19 February 2019


 

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Mathematics - Oral Examination

We implemented a high-stake oral examination.  100% of the final grade for two year 3 financial mathematics modules was determined by oral assessment.

18 February 2019


 

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Statistics - Industry Practitioners Challenge

We organise the LSE Statistics Practitioners’ Challenge for BSc and MSc students. During this event, we collaborate with leading industry partners to initiate competitive projects focusing on real issues faced by companies. Students, who take on the challenge, use their personal and professional skills developed through their program at LSE. 

18 February 2019


 

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Mathematics - Professional and Personal Development Seminars

This case study is about the PPD Seminar Series which the Department of Mathematics runs for its first-year students.

18 February 2019


 

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Statistics - Diversifying assessment and transferable skills

Combining diversified assessment with development of communication and other transferable skills through a market research "pitch".

18 February 2019


 

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Language Centre - Mandarin video chatshow

In this teaching and assessment activity, students work in pairs to create a filmed interview in the style of a TV chat-show. This requires them to research, listen, speak and present ideas and arguments in Mandarin Chinese, based on current affairs subjects of their choosing. Over the five years of the project, students have stated that the activity improves both their language abilities and their transferrable skills.

14 February 2019


 

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Social Policy - Research Diary

The Department of Social Policy, along with guidance from TLC, has developed a research diary for our second year research methods students. The diary includes: guided questions related to the research project each week; a detailed timeline for project completion; and space to write down questions as they arise.

13 February 2019


 

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LSE LIFE - Quant4Qual

Quant4Qual brings together students from across departments in a space that has a (1) facilitatory teaching style (2) peer-to-peer learning (3) grounded-learning in case-study analysis. The aim of the project is to establish an entry point for students to gain confidence working with empirical research methods in the social science.

12 February 2019 


 

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US Centre - Research Assistantships: inviting students into the scholarly community

The US Centre’s Undergraduate Research Assistantship is an opportunity for students to involve themselves in internationally-oriented scholarship on America’s changing role in the world. Collaborating over the course of a year, students are paired with academics who require assistance in processing new data, gathering archival resources, writing-up a blog article, or conducting library searches.

8 February 2019


 

There are two former types of teaching case studies at the LSE. They are:

LSE Learning technology case studies and

LSE academic development case studies (below) 

Teaching and learning case studies 2017-18

 

Finance CS

Employing case studies on Master's courses in LSE Finance

Prof. Daniel Ferreira discusses the long-term use of the case study method in the Department of Finance, and its more recent introduction to undergraduate teaching.

9 November 2018

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Researching London

Dr Ioanna Gouseti illustrates how vital experiential learning and research in London is to her 2nd year BSc students on 'Researching London: Methods for Social Research (SO211).

15 March 2018

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Gender Studies student research conference

Dr Jacob Breslow and his students describe why their conference was a challenging yet rewarding learning and assessment experience.

19 October 2017

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Developing real-world experience

Dr James Abdey explains the benefits to students of 'real-world' learning on ST327 Market Research: An Integrated Approach.

22 September 2017

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Building a research community: involving academics, PhD students and MSc students in Conflict Research Group seminars

Dr Denisa Kostovicova details the CRG lunchtime research seminars, organised during term times since 2011.

19 September 2017

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Video production for En un lugar de Loñdres

Lourdes Hernández-Martín, project designer and course coordinator, LN122, explains her students' project to research the lives and language of 300,000+ members of London’s Spanish-speaking communities.

4 September 2017

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Designing and presenting posters

Dr Jennifer Jackson-Preece details the use of student research and poster creation in her course on Ethnic Diversity and International Society (EU457) in this case study.

10 August 2017

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Accounting case-based groupwork

Dr Tommaso Palermo used a case-based approach to groupwork with his second year undergraduate class. 

14 July 2017

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Graduate Teaching Assistant Away Day 

Alex Marcoci and Diana Popescu discuss how they organised a shared Away Day for graduate teaching assistants for the Departments of Philosophy, Logic & Scientific Method and Government.

26 June 2017