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Should we allow/endorse questions asking for feedback on a lesson plan/lab/other class activity? For teachers, having peer review on various aspects of designing a course could be very helpful and useful to future visitors, especially new teachers. This would fit into the Stack Exchange philosophy of creating a repository of knowledge. Obviously we'd have to be especially careful not to permit broad questions here (e.g. "Plz right lesson plan for me for tomorrow"), and we'd have to make sure that the questions stay high quality, but that's a responsibility we already have with the existing Q&A.

This is not a standard use of Stack Exchange Q&A, but it's been done effectively on CodeReview.SE and I believe that it could be effective and useful here. I don't see how it could hurt the site (as long as we curate carefully) and I think that such questions would help to attract a wider group of teachers to this proposal without broadening the scope.

If we do permit this use of the site, I suggest that we carefully confine it to a tag, for example "review" (other tag name suggestions are welcome, review could be too broad of a name) already exists and has a similar question.

An example question could be:

I am teaching a lesson on x. How can I better express y?

I was going to start with activity x, then explain y, them check if they know z.

Specifically, I think my students my struggle to understand x without knowing y. Should I change the order? Should I first teach q?

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I'm all for it so long as there's precise feedback being requested.

I envision acceptable topics being something like the following:

"I have planned a conceptual lesson on pointers, but I'm looking for a simple, clear code example to demonstrate their use in C."

"What real world examples can I use in my lesson on arrays to reinforce the concept that indexing starts at 0, not 1?"

This type of question -- when coupled with lesson plans/outlines and the language(s) of the course -- seems like a great addition to the pedagogical focus of this community.

On a separate note, a tag like would be more precise than just . Review could also relate to exam review for example.

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  • $\begingroup$ I considered lesson-review, but that could also refer to reviewing a lesson that had been taught, going over something thathad been taught $\endgroup$ – thesecretmaster♦ May 25 '17 at 9:41
  • $\begingroup$ @thesecretmaster I could see that concern on a site for the general public, but I wouldn't worry about that word confusion so much on a site aimed largely at educators :) $\endgroup$ – Ben I.♦ May 25 '17 at 10:39
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    $\begingroup$ I just edited the question, lesson-ideas already exists. $\endgroup$ – thesecretmaster♦ May 25 '17 at 10:40
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    $\begingroup$ I think reviews, in the style of CodeReview, might be a bit too loose for this site. Presenting the lesson (lesson plan) and requesting feedback on a targeted point that I'm unsure of, or wonder if I could present better, is a good idea, and I believe a good fit for the site's aim. $\endgroup$ – Gypsy Spellweaver May 30 '17 at 7:00
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To the overall question, I vote a resounding yes. I would like to set up guidelines about what makes a good lesson review. Is anyone here also on CodeReview.SE?

When the thread started, it asked about , and then @Peter suggested . If we're thinking about having lesson reviews, codereview-style, I'm not sure that (where we have arrived at this point) is really the same thing as , and I might prefer Peter's suggestion.

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  • $\begingroup$ Agreed. To me, lesson-ideas connotes the brainstorming aspect of deciding how to teach/sequence instruction and does not include a fully-formed idea. On the other hand, lesson-review indicates that a plan for a lesson/unit has been formed but needs further review or feedback. Maybe the analogy is the SO explains how and CodeReview provides feedback once it's been learned from SO. Similarly, an idea can be brainstormed generally with lesson-ideas and review with lesson-review. I don't know if that's too narrow focus for each to make them unusable, but that's the distinction I see. $\endgroup$ – Peter May 25 '17 at 19:08
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    $\begingroup$ Yes, I am also on CR.SE, and that style seems to broad for here. (See comment to Peter's answer. @Peter the lesson-ideas (brainstorming) proposed seems better for chat than for site questions. I do support "targeted" reviews however. $\endgroup$ – Gypsy Spellweaver May 30 '17 at 7:02

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