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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.

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.

Education institutions persist by transforming leadership skills to manage their knowledge resources efficiently as well as enhance the lecturer’s teaching and learning innovation capabilities. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate whether knowledge management plays a role of mediator between transformational leadership and teaching and learning innovation in teacher education.

A cross-sectional survey design was used to collect the primary data from 359 teacher educators across Malaysia. Self-administered questionnaires were distributed to all the samples, and the collected data was analysed using structural equation modelling approach.

The data analysis indicated that knowledge management did not play the role of a mediator in this study because the direct effect of transformational leadership on teaching and learning innovation was stronger than the indirect effect of transformational leadership through knowledge management.

From the aspect of implications on the practice, it was suggested that all lecturers and head of departments attend clinical training and workshops on knowledge management to further understand the knowledge management processes that could enhance the quality of teaching in teacher education institutes.

This study is perhaps the first study to investigate the role of knowledge management as a mediator between transformational leadership and teaching and learning innovation in teacher education.

In the field of education in China, a large number of learning management systems have been deployed, in which vast amounts of data on learners and learning processes have been stored. How can one make use of these data? How can one transform the data into information and knowledge that inform decision-making in teaching and optimize learning? These questions have become a matter of concern for educators and learners. Learning analytics helps to unlock the value of the learning process data, so that the data can become an important basis for prudent decisions and process optimization. 'Learning analytics' was listed in the 2013 NMC Horizon Report as one of the emerging technologies that will have a great impact on learning, teaching and innovative research in higher education in two to three years. The report notes that learning analytics aims to decipher trends and patterns in the teaching and learning process from educational big data. In this paper, an online course on the Moodle platform is used for the research. The study examines reflection on online teaching and learning based on massive records of the learning process from the perspective of a tutor employing learning analytics. It is a brand new form of reflection on teaching and learning. The analysis of interactive course forums can help tutors to focus on key teaching and learning activities, and achieve more accurate analysis than with conventional face-to-face teaching activities. The research indicates that learning analytics is effective in supporting tutor reflection on interactive online teaching and learning.

The purpose of this paper is to explore educator collaborative inquiry in the shared workspace in professional learning communities (PLCs). Specifically, this investigation was part of an ongoing investigation of well-established PLC collaborative interactions and self-directed learning of educators as part of the shared workspace as a component of school improvement.

A qualitative design was used for this investigation. Participants were purposefully selected to provide qualitative data on existent, well-established PLCs and their practice as educators in the shared workspace. Qualitative data were collected about participant perception. Data were collected from each participant by conducting semi-structured interviews, observations, and the collection of document and artifacts.

Findings from this ongoing investigation point to positive collaborative physical interactions and intellectual discourse that lead to educator learning through the collaborative inquiry process.

Theories on PLCs and educator job-embedded professional learning are unique in this paper. The concepts of PLCs and the collaborative inquiry process have been well developed but not in the context of the shared workspace. Recent literature on effective collaborative inquiry educators undergo in PLCs as a continuing professional development model provides a foundation for the work done in this ongoing case study. Sustained collaboration and continued professional development of teaching innovations as a product of the collaborative inquiry process in the shared workspace are underdeveloped as yet but further developed in this paper.

Research and development pursuits have always been an integral part of a teacher’s professional development. Today, the higher educational institutes (HEIs) are chiefly prioritizing and providing a sustained support toward research-based and research-oriented learning. But as revealed by the broad outlines of the entire scenario, a fall in research productivity and developmental attempts is witnessed among the faculties of higher educational establishments. To put it succinctly, the motivating aspects that reinforce such activities are not adequately taken care of and have thwarted their progression. The purpose of this paper is to delve deep and explore the factors that inspire teachers toward an enriched research and learning, which equally gets reflected in their teaching practices.

This is a descriptive research with a cross-sectional survey on faculties from different HEIs of West Bengal. A questionnaire has been designed with a five-point Likert scale to draw the primary data. Convenience sampling technique has been utilized. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis have been performed with structural equation modeling on the hypothesized research model through AMOS.

The major findings of the research have revealed that improved research and development activities of faculties had an immense impact on their teaching quality. The level and accessibility of infrastructure posits a strong influence in augmenting a teacher’s research and developmental endeavors. Working climate influences teachers’ research activities as well their teaching adroitness.

Results may vary when an extensive study is conducted on teachers of HEIs of two or more states or of the country as a whole. Suppression of the real underlying facts by few respondents may affect the result to a small extent.

When faculties orient themselves toward research intensive learning and teaching, the students actively get involved in a platform of greater interaction. It elevates their persistence level, intellectual curiosity, critical thinking and cognitive skills. Research-based teaching is also instrumental in honing their analytical skills, promoting creativity.

The study identified a vital role of the higher education institutes in motivating the faculties toward research-based teaching. There is a dearth of empirical research in identifying the factors that enrich the learning patterns and research activities of the teachers. Thus, it can prove to be a constructive study if implemented.