Student Ratings of Instruction: Top 5 Tips
It’s that time in the term again, when instructors and TAs will start preparing for SRIs. To get you started, we have created the Top 5 Tips to help you maximize your SRI results.
1. Talk to your students
Talking to your students about the SRIs, what they mean to you, your career and future iterations of the course, will help them understand the importance of the SRI process. A great strategy is to give specific examples of changes you’ve made to the course(s) you are teaching/have taught based on previous evaluation results. This allows the students to understand that their feedback is taken seriously, and that they can not only help develop your teaching skills, but also positively impact the student experience.
Check out the “Guidelines for students on providing constructive feedback”on our website. We encourage you to read and discuss this with your students before the evaluation period and let them know this link is also sent to them in the course evaluation email.
2. Add questions
Adding personalized questions to your SRIs is a great strategy to gain specific feedback on your teaching practice or any pedagogical changes you’ve made to your course. All instructors can add up to six additional questions to the SRI forms, and we encourage every instructor to take advantage of them. These are formative and the results of these questions will only be reported to the instructor and can be extremely useful in your teaching dossier to highlight specific innovative approaches or teaching values that are important to your teaching practice.
Ask questions about anything you want feedback on! Did you try a new teaching technique? Are you using a different textbook or other materials for core course content? Did you integrate a different form of assessment this year, and want to know how students experienced it? Think outside of the box and consider how you can use these questions to get feedback that can help you in planning your course for next term and ultimately enhance your teaching skills.
3. Monitor your response rate
Monitoring your response rate during the evaluation period is a helpful way to know if you should be talking to your students more about the important of SRIs. You can do this by using the link we send via email or by logging into Brightspace and clicking the “Ratings of Instruction” link in the main menu. Keeping students engaged in the process is one of the most effective ways to ensure a higher response rate, and one method of doing so is to set aside time during class for students to complete the SRI, as outlined next.
4. Provide time in class
It is recommended that instructors provide time in class for students to fill out the SRI forms. Even providing as little as ten minutes at the start your class can help increase your response rate and emphasize to students the importance of providing feedback to instructors. Details on best practices are available on the SRI website: https://www.dal.ca/dept/clt/SRI/sri_resources.html
5. TA evaluations
TA evaluations are available. If you would like to ensure your TA is being evaluated, please contact the SRI liaison in your department. TAs need the SRI results for their dossiers. It is also is an opportunity for them to experience the process and learn from it so that when or if they become faculty members someday, they will have the skills necessary for integrating the evaluation process into their teaching.
For further information on the SRI process or to get the specific timeline for the current term, please visit www.dal.ca/sri.