A friend who led the state adult education office asked me whether we could build a place for instructors to create and share lesson plans. Teachers were preparing their lessons independently, and she wanted them to be able to use one another's work while keeping it aligned with state academic standards.
We worked through the idea in meetings with her, a board of state officials, and individual stakeholders. I was responsible for turning those discussions into an application. I did much of the development myself and hired and directed a contractor for part of it.
The resulting Lesson Bank accumulated more than 2,200 registered accounts. Teachers contributed 309 lessons that passed expert review and became available to others.
Writing and reviewing a lesson
An instructor creating a lesson worked through a series of forms, choosing the academic standards it addressed along the way. Across the two primary subject areas, that meant 13 steps and 69 fields.
I expected those forms to need changes, so I built an editor for them. Field definitions and validation rules lived in the database, where they could be adjusted without rewriting the application.
I also suggested having an experienced educator review a lesson before it could be published. Selecting a standard was something the application could check.