INNOVATIVE PRACTICES AND PEDAGOGIES FOR TEACHING UNDERGRADUATE INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT STUDIES WORKSHOP, June 7-8, 2021
by Elisheva Cohen
Last summer, the Global Center collaborated with the Tobias Center to offer a two-day virtual workshop that surveyed the latest trends in International Development Studies (IDS). Thirty-seven scholar-educators from fourteen countries around the world discussed their current teaching strategies.
“Undoubtedly, the most prominent theme of the workshop was the importance of decolonizing the field of IDS and, in turn, our teaching practices,” says workshop organizer Elisheva Cohen. “Presenters questioned the IDS cannon and reinforced the necessity of questioning whose voices are heard. For instance, two presenters, Jonathan Langdon, of St. Francis Xavier University, and Ajay Parasram, of Dalhousie University, suggested incorporating voices of early postcolonial revolutionaries such as Walter Rodney and Thomas Sankara.”
“There was also a lot of interest in new ways of leveraging technology,” Cohen adds. “Marylynn Steckley, of Carleton University, argued that e-volunteering could address the racial, social, and economic inequities related to travel-based experiential learning while also acknowledging the environmental impact of air travel.”
“I came out of the workshop feeling inspired and excited to teach again,” one participant relates. “I also told my department about some of the takeaways from the workshop, particularly around tech-enhanced pedagogies to break up the boring linearity of zoom lectures.”
