What happens to the innovation when project funding ends? Learning architecture matters!

Abstract

The fragility and (un)sustainability of pedagogical innovations is a major theme in the education literature. This study was guided by the theoretical framework that sustainable change requires sustained and aligned learning at multiple levels of the education system, and that greater scale in the innovation affords peer learning at multiple levels. It investigates the sustainability of three e-learning pilot projects in Hong Kong by studying the changes, if any, in (1) the e-learning pedagogical practices (the innovation) that was developed, and (2) the “architecture for learning” that was put into place at multiple levels in order to steer and implement the project, within the first school year after the formal 3-year funding ended. The findings indicate that the nature of the innovation as envisioned and the architecture for learning that was put into place in each project were critical in determining the subsequent sustainability of the projects.