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The University of Delaware is engaged in a multi-year effort to improve how teaching is defined and evaluated.

This began in earnest in the fall of 2018 with a Provost-charged “Working Group on Student Course Feedback.” This group delivered a final report in October 2021 with four recommendations:

1. Develop a common student ratings of instruction (SRI) instrument to collect student feedback that is focused more on learning opportunities and established best practices and less on student satisfaction with the course and instructor.
2. Develop a teaching quality framework that adequately and consistently accounts for all the work that goes into excellent teaching.
3. Encourage departments to review their P&T and Merit Metric policies in light of the issues identified in this report.
4. Explore the feasibility of adopting a third party SRI tool with powerful reporting features.

This work has continued with the Faculty Senate Ad Hoc Committee on Student Evaluations of Teaching formed in the winter of 2021/2022. Thus far, this group has focused its efforts on developing two documents for distribution and discussion:

• Draft University of Delaware Teaching Quality Framework (4-page printable pdf version)
• Draft University of Delaware Student Ratings of Instruction survey instruments
  • Mid-semester instrument
  • End-of-semester instrument

We welcome your feedback as we continue this important work!