In a few days faculty can add questions to the Student Ratings of Instruction (SRI). I thought I should share these questions that I have been using to improve the relevance of the feedback from students in online classes. There are many questions that could be asked, but given a limit of five, the following seem to provide a good balance of information that is lacking from the basic 10 questions used in all Dalhousie classes. These questions are based on principles and objectives derived from the Dalhousie University Strategic Focus 2013-2013 (1), California State University Chico’s Rubric for Online Instruction (2) and Wright’s Criteria for Evaluating the Quality of Online Courses (3).

Innovative Teaching with Technology

• This course used technology innovatively to enhance student learning.

• Interactive learning activities provided a sense of belonging to a class which is progressing together through the course material.

• The structure and organization of the course activities allowed me the flexibility to efficiently participate at times that best suited me.

• The materials used in this course were appropriate, relevant and up to date.

• The course technologies used to facilitate learning in this class were free of any technical problems.

I’d be interested to hear from others who teach online.

1. Traves, Tom. Dalhousie’s Strategic Focus, 2010-2013. [Online] June 2010. [Cited: March 2011, 8.]http://senioradmin.dal.ca/files/June_dalhousie-universitys-strategic-focus-2010-2013.pdf.

2. California State University, Chico. Rubric for Online Instruction. [Online] 2009. [Cited: March 8, 2011.]http://www.csuchico.edu/tlp/resources/rubric/rubric.pdf.