Evaluating Sustainability Integration Worksheet

This worksheet is meant to consider the outcomes of sustainability integrations in curriculum. It is intended to help determine if the sustainability knowledge, skills, values, and competencies that could be relevant for students in a particular discipline were effectively integrated into a program and uncover strengths and weaknesses. It poses a series of questions for users understand if their goals for sustainability integration have been met.

Some considerations to make:

• The questions are broad, in that they could be applied to any program of study, and as such, some questions may vary in relevance for any individual program.
• The questions do not depend on any particular definition or understanding of sustainability, but could draw in many different perspectives or focus on specific topics.
• It is likely valuable to gather a range of opinions and insight into the answers to each question, through group discussion or brainstorming.
• These questions do not need to be answered in this worksheet. They could be part of a whiteboard activity, post-it note session, or open conversation.

Users of the worksheet will likely find it valuable to start by going back to the knowledge, skills, and values that they have previously identified as relevant for students in a particular discipline and comparing those to any integration efforts implemented. Prompting questions could include:

• What connections were identified between sustainability and the discipline? i.e. direct/indirect risks, regulatory changes, social norms, values, expectations, codes of conduct/ethics
• What competencies and learning outcomes were identified based on these connections? i.e. foundational knowledge, deeper knowledge, discipline-specific skills, ethical practices/accountabilities, real-world experiences
• How were these competencies translated into curriculum advancements? i.e. new course A, modules on topics X, Y, Z integrated into course B, assignment integrated into course C
• What areas of integration remain to be developed further? i.e. have not yet found a way to integrate knowledge/skill X

Referring back to the connections between sustainability and the discipline identified in step 2, connect, sets a baseline of what skills, knowledge, and values you found to be relevant to the discipline and potentially included in curriculum. Consider the potential skills and competencies gaps you identified, and opportunities you saw to improve pre-existing processes. The table below may be helpful to organize these outcomes and actions taken.

Reflecting on the goals identified above,

• What have students said about the sustainability content in curriculum? Did they provide feedback to faculty or staff? Did you conduct any forms of feedback on this content (i.e. surveys, focus groups, casual conversations, course evaluations) and what themes emerged?
• How did students engage with and respond to this material? Did they see the relevance? Was this something students jumped into, or were they more hesitant?
• Did students identify any connections to future ready skills or industry needs?
• Did students demonstrate the identified relevant knowledge, skills and values? This might be in assessments, discussions, other classroom activities, or co-curricular engagements

Reflecting on the feedback above and in discussion within the department,

• What methods of integration most effectively equipped students with the desired relevant knowledge, skills, and values in sustainability? What contributed to their success?
• What would you change if you were to do the integration again?
• Were there any relevant topics that weren’t adequately covered? Why weren’t they covered?
• What gaps continue to exist between desired sustainability knowledge, skills, and values learning outcomes, and the experienced outcomes?
• Were there any surprises in the content that students engaged with and/or that students performed well on? What do you think led to these outcomes?

Reflecting on the goals and feedback identified above,

• Did you effectively equip students with the identified sustainability knowledge, skills, and values identified as relevant to the discipline? What factors contributed to this? Can successes be reliably replicated? How can we learn from this for future iterations?
• What opportunities were identified in the process to integrate sustainability more meaningfully into curriculum?
• What challenges did you experience integrating sustainability and how can you mitigate or manage these in the future? Will they persist into the future? Are they unique to your discipline, or could you look for solutions from peers?

As noted, the above questions are not exhaustive and could be explored through many different formats and settings. If you are interested, the Sustainability Office could also help facilitate a session to walk through some of these questions and topics.

If you'd prefer, download a pdf of this reflection guide.