Learning within sustainable educational innovation: An analysis of teachers’ perceptions and leadership practice

Abstract

Innovative initiatives in education often have problems with their sustainability. The present study focuses on three educational innovations that have proved to be sustainable over time. We used a qualitative research approach to study and identify essential features of sustainable educational innovation. Two theoretical frameworks were used to guide the study: the integrated model for sustainable innovation (IMSI) and self-determination theory (SDT). Both frameworks take a different perspective upon learning; IMSI presents learning at the individual level, the team level and the organizational level to be the heart of sustainable innovation, and SDT presents how learning can be improved. The research question focused upon how the SDT concepts of autonomy, competence and relatedness were perceived within sustainable innovation, expressed by the IMSI framework, by teachers and school leaders. Based on our findings we demonstrate that the framework of IMSI and SDT can effectively be applied as a frame of analysis to identify essential features of sustainability in educational innovations and we discuss how concepts of SDT deepen the knowledge of sustainable educational innovation.

Fatores de inovação docente em Portugal segundo os professores

“…Embora os resultados sejam semelhantes aos encontrados no contexto espanhol (Monge López, 2018), o objetivo deste trabalho não foi encontrar diferenças significativas entre os dois países. Apesar das influências dos contextos culturais, políticos ou econômicos na inovação educativa (Mesquita et al, 2014;Burget et al, 2018;Díaz-Gibson et al, 2019;Fix et al, 2021), aqui é oferecida uma visão atualizada dos principais fatores de inovação em Portugal numa perspectiva que integra o quantitativo e o qualitativo. E isso responde à necessidade de fornecer uma conceituação contextualizada da inovação (Tavares, 2019).…”

“…Por ser um construto socialmente elaborado, há diferenças nas percepções e conceitualizações feitas pelos professores sobre a inovação educativa dependendo da cultura e do país de origem, como Portugal (Mesquita et al, 2014), Estônia (Burget et al, 2018), China (Zhu e Engels, 2014), Espanha (Díaz-Gibson et al, 2019), Países Baixos (Hofman, Jansen e Spijkerboer, 2011;Fix et al, 2021), Estados Unidos (Gray, 2001).…”

Development of an intervention framework for school improvement that is adaptive to cultural context

“…Team leadership and commitment towards working on the improvement projects was, therefore, deficient in these schools. As Fix et al (2021) highlighted, teacher leadership and autonomy are essential for all school improvement, but a collective sense-making must be part of it. Autonomy without collective sense-making will lead to a low level of engagement and work against the sustainability of the innovation.…”

“…These are crucial elements in constructive relations in schools (Supovitz & Tognatta, 2013). Fix et al (2021) highlighted that context-conscious leadership creates a balance between leadership decisions, policy and teachers’ actions. Louis et al (2010) agreed and claimed that effective leadership practices include an emphasis on collective leadership, the extensive influence of staff and the strong support of district leaders.…”

Innovación y sustentabilidad empresarial en turismo. Una revisión sistemática de literatura

“…Aunque la integración de los aspectos de sustentabilidad en la operación de servicios ha sido reconocida como una prioridad estratégica que genera nuevos desafíos de investigación en los campos académicos del marketing, gestión de la cadena de suministro y desarrollo de bienes y servicios. Estas estrategias permiten a las empresas explorar nuevas iniciativas e ideas, al mismo tiempo de compartir conocimientos y prácticas exitosas (Fix et al, 2020;.…”