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Higher education has recently experienced an advancement in teaching and learning methods. Academics are experimenting with innovative techniques in using e-learning due to the global pandemic which has given a new dimension to classroom teaching. Hybrid teaching is becoming the new norm for classroom teaching which includes both face-to-face and online modes. Smart gadgets and technology are being used to design classroom delivery, assessment, and evaluation of students. The use of innovative teaching and learning methods becomes crucial to motivate and teach a spirit of learning. The development in the information and communication technologies (ICTs) sector has led to knowledge-intensive, interdependent and internationalized societies exploring and experimenting with opportunities for the design and delivery of education. ICTs are opening up new horizons to facilitate the exchange of creativity and intercultural dialogue. This book volume highlights case studies and innovative teaching methods used by academics across the globe. It talks about how teaching staff should stimulate students’ active engagement in their own learning processes leading to transformative student learning. It discusses the in-class approach of implementing high-quality project-based learning activities that integrate learning in an authentic real-world manner. Chapters are dedicated to experiential learning which encourages critical thinking and creative problem-solving skills in students which is the essence of innovative teaching-learning methods. Academics are applying these methods to ensure that the student learning process is free flowing and stimulates students toward role-playing and mastering problem-based learning.

The Covid-19 period has led to defining changes in the teaching process. Therefore, it is essential to explore how teachers have approached these changes, what experiences they have gained and what they have tried to change. This study aims to elucidate how innovative practices were applied in teaching – which was influenced by emergency remote teaching (ERT) – and better understand teachers' experiences related to these practices.

The phenomenology design, a qualitative research model, was executed in the current study. Phenomenological inquiry aims to interpret people's experiences about a specific concept designated as a phenomenon. Creswell (2020) classified two types of phenomenology: interpretive and descriptive. Interpretive phenomenology was employed in the current study as researchers collected data from individuals experiencing the phenomenon, collected and interpreted the data via excluding their own experiences.

As a result of the data interpretation, four themes related to experiences of innovative teaching practices during ERT were discovered: interpretation of innovative teaching, innovative teaching practices, needs related to innovative teaching and challenges to innovative teaching. The categories related to the interpretation of innovative teaching include positive and negative interpretation. The categories related to the second theme, innovative teaching practices, consist of characteristics of innovative teachers and innovative teaching practices employed. The categories related to the third theme, needs related to innovative teaching, are the need for guidance, training and technological infrastructure. The categories related to the fourth and final theme, challenges to innovative teaching, are barriers related to the teacher, barriers related to the learner and those related to the environment.

This study discovered that for teachers to practice innovative teaching, they must develop themselves, keep up-to-date and develop lifelong learning skills. Hung and Li (2017) reached a similar conclusion to the findings of this study: teachers' professional development is positively related to innovative teaching skills at a high level. The participating teachers stated that they had to rapidly improve their technological competency. It is thought that teachers developing their technological competencies will contribute to both ERT and face-to-face education at the end of the Pandemic.

Due to the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, primary and secondary schools worldwide are deploying online teaching/learning practices, fostering and thus innovation practices. The purpose of this study is to determine the degree to which practices reflecting educational innovation are implemented in the Greek public primary and secondary schools operating under conditions characterized by the COVID-19 pandemic. Determining the relationship among these educational innovation practices is also an aim of the present study.

A research study was conducted in the Greek public primary and secondary schools. 522 teachers fully completed a structured questionnaire. Descriptive statistics, exploratory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were applied to analyze the data.

The findings reveal that administration-related innovation practices, teaching-related innovation practices and online teaching/learning practices are implemented to some extent in primary and secondary schools in Greece, but there is still scope for continued development. The online teaching/learning practices set the foundations for further developing a culture of fully adopting other educational innovation practices in these schools to improve education.

Limited research concerning educational innovation practices has focused on primary and secondary schools. The need for more studies on teaching and learning innovations that have resulted from the COVID-19 crisis is highlighted by the literature. The results of this study support the fact that online teaching/learning implemented in primary and secondary schools is positively associated with administration-related and teaching-related innovation practices, concluding that this forced change in the educational process can act as a catalyst for more changes and innovative actions.

Higher Education institutions are complex but optimal organizations for innovation and creativity to grow and flourish. To achieve this, teaching staff should stimulate students’ active engagement in their own learning processes leading to transformative student learning. This chapter focuses on an innovative pedagogical approach, which has been consistently implemented for the last three academic years in the 3rd year module “Sport, Leisure and Tourism” within Sports undergraduate degree at the University of Algarve (Portugal). The case study method and reflective portfolio were used to create an authentic, enriching, and transformative learning experience for all students. These teaching, learning, and assessment methods are, within the context of the module, underpinned by experiential learning theory. Meta-reflections of 92 students’ portfolios showed their views about the entire process and their perception of skills they gained: (i) scientific and academic; (ii) professional; and (iii) intrapersonal and interpersonal. The innovative pedagogy presented in this chapter aimed to impact on students’ ability to understand and navigate through complexity – both in a teaching and learning environment and in a real organization.

Informal learning is an effective and motivating strategy to support the learning process. Informal learning has received increased attention recently due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. However, finding effective ways to facilitate innovative teaching and learning through open educational resources (OER) is a vital issue. The purpose of the current study is to investigate the informal learning characteristics (ILC) (i.e. observation, imitation, exploration, innovation and articulation) of teachers in using OER and whether these characteristics have any relationship with teachers' innovative work behavior (IWB, i.e. opportunity exploration, idea generation, idea promotion and idea realization) in schools.

The current study utilized a descriptive quantitative survey approach. A survey with three parts was developed: the Open Educational Resources Scale (OERS), the Teachers' Informal Learning Characteristics Scale (TILCS) and the Teachers' Innovative Work Behavior Scale (TIWBS). The information was gathered from a sample of 2,024 teachers working in Kuwait's public schools through an online survey.

The results revealed that social media, YouTube, PowerPoint and games were the most common open resources used by teachers. Teachers' responses on the TILCS showed that observation was the most common among teachers and exploration was the second. Responses on the TIWBS showed that idea generation was the highest. When using OER, the results showed that all five subscales of the TILCS and all four subscales of the TIWBS were linked in a good way.

This study had several limitations that should be considered in future research. First, the data collection method was self-report. Future research necessitates adopting qualitative methods such as participant observations where IWB can be monitored and documented. Another limitation is almost all teachers have smartphone with Internet access, which may have affected the results. This situation might not be found in other countries since a large percentage of young people in Kuwait use information and communication technology as is the case in other Gulf region countries.

This study expects that this kind of support will be reflected on teachers' IWB which accelerates teachers' movement toward upper IWB tasks such as idea promotion and idea realization. This support will motivate teachers to transform teachers' innovative ideas into useful applications and try to assist teachers' colleagues through conducting workshops or inviting well-known educators to present their experiences to school personnel.

This study can be a guide to help teachers be independent, self-directed, problem-solving-oriented and internally motivated by incorporating the assumptions of andragogy theory. Furthermore, this study points out the high tendency of teachers to use OER and helps to plan teachers' professional development programs that take Andragogical tendencies into account in addition to developing teachers' lifelong learning skills.

The results implied that teachers have obvious ILC toward OER, specifically through observation and exploration to create their own innovations in their work environments. With the appropriate internal and external incentives and support from school administrators, this study expects that teachers will move forward toward upper informal learning stages such as innovation and articulation and toward upper tasks in IWB such as idea promotion and idea realization. As a result, schools as places of work can go through a lot of changes if new OER-related applications and workshops are added.

The purpose of this paper is to present an analytical review of the educational innovation field in the USA. It outlines classification of innovations, discusses the hurdles to innovation, and offers ways to increase the scale and rate of innovation-based transformations in the education system.

The paper is based on a literature survey and author research.

US education badly needs effective innovations of scale that can help produce the needed high-quality learning outcomes across the system. The primary focus of educational innovations should be on teaching and learning theory and practice, as well as on the learner, parents, community, society, and its culture. Technology applications need a solid theoretical foundation based on purposeful, systemic research, and a sound pedagogy. One of the critical areas of research and innovation can be cost and time efficiency of the learning.

Several practical recommendations stem out of this paper: how to create a base for large-scale innovations and their implementation; how to increase effectiveness of technology innovations in education, particularly online learning; how to raise time and cost efficiency of education.

Innovations in education are regarded, along with the education system, within the context of a societal supersystem demonstrating their interrelations and interdependencies at all levels. Raising the quality and scale of innovations in education will positively affect education itself and benefit the whole society.

Originality is in the systemic approach to education and educational innovations, in offering a comprehensive classification of innovations; in exposing the hurdles to innovations, in new arguments about effectiveness of technology applications, and in time efficiency of education.

This study aims at measuring the results of the use of an improved and innovative teaching method, specifically designed for supporting the development of students’ entrepreneurship competence, through students’ self-assessment before and after the teaching.

The teaching methods design was based on the effectuation approach and considering the comprehensive entrepreneurship competence model as theoretical grounding. The teaching methods experimentation took place in three countries (Estonia, Italy and Poland), collecting pre–post self-assessment surveys from 404 students of entrepreneurship courses. The results of the experimental groups were compared, in each country, with those of control groups not exposed to the same teaching.

Students participating in classes using innovative teaching methods declared an increase in entrepreneurship competencies, with statistically significant differences, contrasting the results in the control group. The positive changes in self-assessment were observed for 13 of 14 subcompetencies investigated. The increase in the level of the self-assessment of entrepreneurship subcompetencies was significantly greater among bachelor’s degree students.

The strengths of the study include a diverse research sample and a uniform structure of teaching design applied in three different countries, while specific comparative studies on entrepreneurship education and its effect on learners are limited. Moreover, this study used a pre–post design and involved a control group, while most of the existing research on the effect of entrepreneurship teaching are based on different methods. Finally, while most studies measure the impact of entrepreneurship education by focusing on entrepreneurial intentions, this study focused on the development of students’ entrepreneurship competences.

E-learning is a very popular concept in the education sector today, and one of the best ways to implement this is through blended learning. However, the implementation of blended learning program at Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) is quite new in Bangladesh. The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of blended learning, how to construct a blended learning program, the benefits of blended learning and some prerequisites to implement blended learning program successfully at HEIs in Bangladesh.

Nature of the study is explanatory, descriptive as well as evaluative. Primary data were collected through face-to-face interviews using structured questionnaire having both open- and close-ended questions including personal observations. Secondary data comprise relevant documents available from government agencies, archives, and library and research organizations.

By utilizing the blended learning tools, HEIs in Bangladesh can achieve radical improvements in education quality as well as in the accessibility and cost-effectiveness of learning programs. Moreover, any innovative educational reform will be successful only when it is fully accepted and adopted by all the key stakeholders: students, parents, teachers, academic administrators, researchers and policy makers.

Several practical solutions have been presented in this paper: how to create a blended learning program, how to overcome the obstacles for successful implementation of blended learning and how to create a flipped classroom with the aid of technology.

A country’s soul and economic well-being depends to a large extent on the quality of their citizen’s education. Implementing innovative teaching programs within the education system will enhance the quality of education at HEIs in Bangladesh, creating more efficient labor force hence benefiting the overall society.

Originality in terms of exposing the hurdles that needs to be addressed for successful implementation of blended learning programs at HEIs in Bangladesh and providing an easy guideline to educators on how to create flipped classrooms.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the teaching innovations that have been implemented in higher education institutions in Asia and the perspectives of educators on them.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 28 educators who were affiliated with 23 higher education institutions in ten Asian countries/regions. The interviews covered information about the teaching innovations of the participants’ institutions, the characteristics of the innovative practices and the participants’ views on them. The relationships between the characteristics of institutions and their teaching innovations were also examined.

The results showed that the teaching innovations included two main categories, namely, those which involved the use of advanced technologies and those which did not. The innovations that involved the use of advanced technologies were mainly from larger institutions, while the other category was mainly from smaller ones and had been practised for less than 1.5 years. Differences were also identified between the two categories in terms of the aims and importance of innovations, innovative features, the evaluation of innovations and improvements needed for them.

The results highlighted that technology is only one of the many aspects of teaching innovations, which is different from the view prevailing in the literature. They also suggested that differences in the scale of institutions (in terms of number of students) possibly influences the kind of teaching innovations adopted.

The role of information and communication technology (ICT) in education is increasingly gaining importance in institutions of higher education. Operationally, ICT has helped to cut costs and speed up transactions by streamlining and automating processes. Pedagogically, it has enabled online, hybrid, and technology enhanced learning as well as a host of other capabilities, from learning management systems to student information system, and from student affairs to academic affairs. ICT is now embedded in every aspect of university life. The role of ICT is found to increase the value of classroom delivery, it has helped in the growth of research, expanding horizons for students mainly with limited accessibility to education and it has created an overall positive impact in the teaching–learning environment in general. There are always two sides to the coin and in this case inaccessibility, economic disparity, and ineffective implementation of ICT has also created impediments for effectively adopting and diffusing integration of ICT into pedagogy. This volume is a collection of interventions and collaborative practices across the world that showcases the multifaceted ways of how various institutions have been engaged in supporting teaching and learning with the use of technology and how it is equipping our future generation with the skills required to face a changing job market.