Are questions on pedagogy on topic?

Question

There is currently an Educator proposal in Area 51 but it seems that a good portion of the work of many academics is teaching.

Is is appropriate to ask questions about pedagogy and student teaching/learning on this site?

One element of teaching is how to give a proper presentation. Elements of how to do so have previously also been discussed at TeX.SE. — gerrit, Oct 11, 2012 at 9:36
Given the up votes to the question and eykanal's answer, should we edit the on topic page to clarify that pedagogy is on topic. I bring this up given how quickly we migrated away cogsci.stackexchange.com/questions/5395/… as "off-topic". — StrongBad, Jan 15, 2014 at 16:21
@DanielE.Shub - Great idea, and I just noticed that I have the ability to modify the FAQ myself. I added a line to the FAQ, let me know what you think. — eykanal, Jan 15, 2014 at 16:56

eykanal · Accepted Answer · 2012-04-04 14:48:35Z

18

Good question, I would say that pedagogy questions relating to the following would be on-topic:

curriculum development for university courses
curriculum/textbook recommendations for university courses
techniques for presentation of material in university courses
graduate students asking whether a particular course would be helpful for their research
graduate students suggesting which courses to take as electives to help further their research

On a similar vein, the following would be off-topic:

That's all I can think of, I'd love to see what others come up with.

answered Apr 4, 2012 at 14:48

eykanal

48.2k26 silver badges59 bronze badges

1

That about sums my thoughts, too.
– aeismail
Apr 4, 2012 at 19:23
7

Why are discipline issues, as they arise in a college setting, off topic? EG: "I am teaching a 30 person calculus course, mostly freshman, which involves a lot of groupwork and discussion. I am glad that my students are eager to engage with each other, but I have trouble getting them to return attention to the board when I need to lecture again. How can I get them to make this transition more efficiently?" Seems on topic to me.
– David E Speyer
Oct 16, 2012 at 11:45
@DavidSpeyer - Without further context, that seems on-topic to me, but this comment thread is not the place for this discussion. Why don't you make a new meta post and include a link to any relevant question?
– eykanal
Oct 16, 2012 at 12:30

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