Each year, LSE and the Department of Social Policy give careful consideration as to how we can deliver your learning in a safe and productive environment.
We run in-person taught seminars and classes, alongside face-to-face community-building and networking activities. You will also have opportunities to interact with fellow students and academic faculty outside of the classroom in LSE’s many social spaces, halls of residence, cafés and Students’ Union societies. The Library, support services and all campus buildings will be available for you to use and enjoy.
LSE’s expectation is that all LSE students are in London and studying on campus, as the teaching on your Programmes is delivered in-person and on Campus.
Teaching and learning in Social Policy Courses will have four main elements:
- Lectures (where you will be introduced to topics, debates and issues) will be delivered in person in LSE lecture halls. We will also record lectures in most cases (although you should check with your Course Convenor that this will be the case on their course. Please note that the recording of lectures is so that you may review lectures and use them to ensure that you have grasped the key point, as well as to use for revision. You are still expected to attend lectures, and many lectures will have a valuable interactive element which you would miss if you only viewed recordings. Lectures will normally be 1- 1.5 hours long (depending on the pedagogical needs of the course).
Recorded lectures will be uploaded online each week on Moodle (LSE’s Virtual Learning Environment).
All recorded lectures will be available for you to stream and will be uploaded in sufficient time to enable you to review the lecture, follow up with any reading you wish to, and formulate any questions or consider any issues you would like to discuss with your teachers and/or classmates.
- Seminars/classes: Seminars/classes will be held each week to allow small groups of students to discuss that week’s topic/theme in depth, led by a class teacher (undergraduate) or seminar leader (postgraduate). Seminars/classes will last approximately 1 to 1.5 hours per week (depending on the pedagogical requirements of the course).
Students who will arrive late to the School: LSEs' expectation is that all students should aim to be in London and available to attend teaching from Welcome and Week 1 of AT (Autumn Term) if at all possible. However, we are aware that this may not always be possible. If this is the case, please contact socialpolicy.ug@lse.ac.uk (BSc Students) or socialpolicy.msc@lse.ac.uk (MSc students) for further information on how you can be supported before you arrive. Please note that all students must be registered on Campus by 25 October 2024.
- Study group activity: On some courses, students will be given activities or tasks to work on in smaller groups in their own time between classes/seminars. The group membership will be determined for you within each course. This model is designed to help you get to know your peers on the course, as well as giving you more time to discuss course material.
Please note that you will also be allocated to ‘Mentor Groups’ as a major part of your learning development. You can find information about Mentor Groups here.
- All members of teaching staff hold weekly Advice and Feedback Hours, which you can attend individually or in Mentor groups to (for example) clarify points, discuss feedback on assignments or seek further ideas for reading. These sessions will be in person unless otherwise arranged. Further details are available on the staff pages of the departmental website.
Please note: the above outlines how the Department of Social Policy organises Social Policy Courses. Other Departments at LSE may deliver their teaching differently, and how they organise teaching will be arranged in ways suitable to their subject. If you are interested in taking a course from another Department and wish to know how it will be taught, you should contact the relevant Department to inquire.