Sustainability meter
the Sustainability meter, a tool to support sustainable educational innovation.
Achieving sustainable educational innovation is complex. An innovation has become sustainable once it has been embedded in an institution's organizational routine. How do you know which steps to take (and how) in your own institution? At the University of Twente, the Sustainability Meter was developed. This is a reflection and discussion tool intended to generate concrete improvement actions to support sustainable innovation in your context.
The discussion is focused on categories of factors influencing sustainable innovation:
- Alignment between vision and policy
- Pillars
- School organization
- Individual stakeholders
- the Innovation
- Context
- Leadership
Participants
An educational innovation is a shared responsibility of multiple actors. This is why the tool is used by a team of 6-8 actors involved. The team may consist of teachers/lecturers, (school) leaders/programme directors, teacher-leaders, students, educational support, and/or others involved with the educational innovation. The goal is to achieve concrete actions for improvement to support the sustainability of the innovation. A designated team member functions as chair/discussion leader, securing the outcomes of the conversation. Another team member (this may be rotated) needs to take notes. In one meeting, 2 or 3 pillars can be discussed, taking approximately one hour per meeting.
Instructions for chair/discussion leader
As the chair/discussion leader, you need to make an account here. Subsequently, you need to make an overview of indicator questions related to the pillars this discussion will be about. This also needs to include the educational innovation. To select suitable pillars, these questions can help:
- Which pillar connects to the educational innovation at hand?
- Which pillar would provide most insight into the state of affairs regarding sustainability?
- Which pillar are you most curious about?
The overview of indicator questions consists of questions that can be answered by scoring on a 4-point scale by the participants. For each set of questions, a unique link will be generated. This link can be sent to the participants. The dashboard shows which participant has answered the questions. Results will be shown per pillar and can be downloaded before the meeting.
Instructions for participants
You have received an email with a link from the chair of the team for discussing the educational innovation. This link will give you access to the Sustainability Meter tool. Please answer the questions related to the innovation that will be discussed, from your own perspective. The answers can be:
- 0: (strongly disagree)
- 1: (disagree)
- 2: (agree) of
- 3: (strongly agree)