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The paradigm of innovation has evolved over the last decades worldwide. The old conception of innovation as technological change has become more diversified and specialised. Current debates express the need to provide a holistic view of innovation, with its pros and cons, including all dimensions of innovation in society and different fields. This paper consists of a qualitative review focusing on three concepts: 'innovation', 'social innovation' and 'innovation in education'. This research includes a historical analysis within 1939–2019 as the base period of analysis. This article is based on 108 different sources, which were carefully selected. The analysis was carried out with content analysis in our main sample. This paper contributes to our understanding of innovation more holistically, by discovering how innovation is understood and used, but also by looking at the different stages it has gone through in historical debates and evolutionary trends. This article presents different perspectives on innovation over time and helps to recognise the evolution of the concept of innovation and the emergence of social innovation as a field of its own. Furthermore, the relevance of innovation in the field of education is presented and current debates on the understanding of innovation are situated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tertiary educators may seek innovative ways to meet the needs of their learners. However, due to the conservative environment of most universities, innovative tertiary teachers often find themselves facing dilemmas: situations in which they must decide between apparently contradictory objectives. This paper reports findings from thematic analysis conducted as part of a study investigating the dilemmas faced by innovative tertiary educators. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 30 successful innovative tertiary teachers. Initial analysis had identified eleven dilemmas directly related to the process of innovation. Thematic analysis of interview data revealed four themes: empathy for students; the need for persistence and resilience; love and hate responses from students; and, passion and enthusiasm aid in selling and diffusing innovation. These themes suggest that innovative teachers face a dilemma between emotional engagement and emotional neutrality. The dilemma shapes decisions made throughout their innovation process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the aims, origins and principles of the Australian National Exceptional Teaching for Disadvantaged Schools programme and reflects on findings from its first eight years. As a well-established, mainstream university-based initial teacher-education programme designed to prepare social justice teachers for low socio-economic or high-poverty schools, NETDS has had significant impact on recruiting and retaining high-performing teachers in the schools that need them most. In this paper we discuss how it works, but also outline some of the complexities that arose in trying to design a teacher-education programme with equity at the centre and some of the changes we made along the way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Teachers' visions are vivid and concrete images of ideal classroom practices. A vision for teaching is important to both practices in the classroom as well as teacher development across time. A useful tool to explore and analyse the role of vision in teacher practices is provided by [Hammerness, K. 2003. "Learning to Hope, or Hoping to Learn? The Role of Vision in the Early Professional Lives of Teachers." Journal of Teacher Education 54 (1): 43–56], whose framework of vision consists of three dimensions: focus, range and distance. Purpose: The writing of [Kretchmar, R. S. 2000. "Moving and Being Moved: Implications for Practice." Quest 52 (3): 260–272; 2008. "The Increasing Utility of Elementary School Physical Education: A Mixed Blessing and Unique Challenge." The Elementary School Journal 108 (3): 161–170] provides the basis for a vision focused on meaningful experiences in physical education. The purpose of this paper is to describe the ways a vision based on meaningful experiences enabled two teachers and three teacher educators to name, describe, and enact their physical education teaching and teacher education practices. Methodology: Raw data from six separate self-studies of practice involving the five participants provided the starting point for this research. Data sources, including written reflections and critical friend responses as well as audio recordings of conversations with critical friends, were mined to identify examples where vision was represented. Further data were generated in a focus group where participants shared and analysed their experiences and discussed how meaningful physical education served as both an individual and collective vision for practice. A final written reflection allowed participants to articulate their current vision for meaningful physical education. A thematic analysis of all data sources supported the organisation of data into three distinct phases of development of practices with emphasis on the role of vision in each phase. Findings: Over time, there was an evolution in our understanding of both what meaningful physical education consisted of and how we might facilitate meaningful experiences for children. In particular, our visions became clearer and better aligned with our practices. We illustrate how we developed our practice in ways that allowed us to take ownership of this vision, and, in the process, changed who we were as teachers and teacher educators. Finally, we share how the process of exploring and analysing our individual visions allowed us to articulate a shared vision of meaningful physical education and explain how to go about implementing our collective vision in practice. Conclusion: We highlight the value of paying attention to the role of vision in promoting and supporting educators, individually and collectively, in developing and sustaining innovation in teaching and teacher education practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper carries out a detailed analysis of the effects of R&D and human capital as well as their interactions with innovation on export behavior of manufacturing and service firms in Ghana using a dataset of 720 firms that merges the Enterprise, Innovative Capability and the Innovation Follow-up Surveys respectively for Ghana. Using a bivariate probit regression, the results show that R&D and human capital (employees' education, slack time and formal training) are positive and significantly related to the propensity for firms to export in Ghana. The cross derivatives (differences) for the interaction terms (R&D and innovation, and education and innovation) also showed that these interaction terms have positive effects on the likelihood for firms to export but are significant only for a negligibly small fraction of the sample. Thus, there is no much statistically significant evidence in support of the mediation role of innovation in the relationship between R&D/education and the export behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on two empirical studies on education in health and elderly care, this paper reflects on the possible role of ‘old ideas’ involved in creative innovation. Most researchers agree that creativity and innovation are the results of a combination of what is new and valuable. What tends to be paid less attention, however, is the fact that many creative activities and everyday innovations in modern-day organisations actually build upon what is already there. Creative products and processes are often the result of some kind of learning from or even re-creation of existing processes and materials. The paper argues that there is excessive enthusiasm towards the novelty aspects of creativity and innovation, which overshadow the potential of old ideas and past experience as drivers of change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite a rich repertoire of inventive and robust practices, and stated commitments to equity, social justice, and diversity, teacher education has continued to struggle to produce educators capable of enacting culturally sustaining pedagogies, and providing historically marginalized youth and communities with meaningful learning opportunities. This paper contends that ontological distance between educators and youth of colour, and the ways Eurocentric epistemologies exist as a colonial 'zero point' in teacher education praxis, are a core element of this existential crisis facing teacher educators. Drawing on decolonial theory and epistemologies of the global south, I suggest that teacher education is in need of epistemic innovation; radically revising our approaches to preparing educators by anchoring them in the epistemic and ontological perspectives of the global south, and in so doing, crafting pedagogical imaginaries through which we might disrupt the ways coloniality lives (often invisibly) in, and is reproduced by, our assumptions about best practices, ways of being, and measures of success. Such a decolonial approach to innovation in teacher education holds promise for ensuring our praxis, and the educators we prepare, are positioned to engage with a hyperdiverse world in humanizing ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the course of introducing a themed issue of the journal on "Innovation in Teacher Education', we lay out an argument for re-examining the meaning of innovation in the field, shifting it away from the dominance of the economistic and technological. Acknowledging its status as a 'buzzword', we distinguish between purposes for innovation and, in particular, between changes driven by arguments for social mobility and those driven by social justice and equity. Two imperatives for innovation underpinned by arguments for social justice and equity are identified: the concept of a 'teacher education debt', built on Ladson-Billings' more general notion of 'education debt'; and the humanization of learning, teaching and becoming a teacher as person-centred, relational practices. The final section of the article introduces each of the six papers in the context of the discussion in previous sections about these imperatives for change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues for the humanisation of research evidence through narrative as an urgent project in teacher education and development. Narrative has the potential to make a significant contribution to a critical re-definition of both evidence and innovation in teacher education. But this argument is not a call for a user-friendly (re)packaging of research evidence, so that 'what works' can be diffused throughout the profession. Globally, such efficiency and productivity approaches have merely sedimented established inequities and injustices. By humanising, the paper promotes a recognition that research evidence of value, is steeped in rich provenance, being both borne out of, and brought to bear in, complex and diverse contexts that are mediated by, and impact upon, the unpredictable yet meaningful activities of humans. It is argued that using evidence effectively is predicated on intelligent judgment and interpretation in and on action, processes that require moral deliberation as well as pedagogical and technical innovation. The central role of narrative in this endeavour is explored critically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While e-support has been positioned as a means, to overcome some of the time and financial constraints to professional learning, it has largely failed to act as a medium for professional learning in physical education. Consequently, this paper positions teachers prior interest with social media acts as a type of ‘leverage’ for using sites such as Facebook and Twitter for professional learning purposes. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to explore how social media operates as a communicative space, external to the physical site of an emerging community of practice (CoP) that supported teachers' professional learning and their subsequent longer term changing practice. This study is nested within a wider longitudinal project that explores how teachers learnt and refined their use of a pedagogical innovation (Cooperative Learning) through the overarching methodology, participatory action research. Social media emerged as a form of communication that was not in the study's original design. The paper explores 2125 interactions, through Facebook and Twitter, between five physical education teachers and a facilitator over a two-year period. Through social media, the facilitator re-enforced teachers changing practice, aided the development of the practices of an emerging CoP, and by the CoP situating their use of the innovation in the virtual world, teachers were supported in changing their practice over time, and the use of the pedagogical innovation was sustained. Interactions promoted teacher inquiry, challenged teachers to develop their existing use of the innovation further and encouraged them to work together and develop shared practices. Therefore, social media is presented here as a ‘new’ method for professional learning that supports pedagogical change and overcomes some of the financial and time implications of facilitators and teachers working together. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper reports on an examination of the impact of knowledge sharing on product and process innovation. In it we try to identify the similarities and differences between these impacts in public and private Higher Education (HE) Institutions in Iraq. A mixed methods approach was conducted using 486 valid responses to test the causal relationships between knowledge sharing, and innovation. Then a qualitative approach was used to give more insight of the findings from the quantitative stage regarding the differences in the effect of the studied relationships. Employing structural equation modelling, the research found that knowledge sharing plays a pivotal role in enhancing innovation in both sectors. The multi-group SEM and the interviews revealed differences between Iraqi public and private HEIs. Guidelines are developed for researchers as well as leaders, and evidence support using knowledge sharing to enhance innovation within HE in developing countries. The findings and suggestions for future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent worldwide trends in curriculum policy have re-emphasised the role of teachers in school-based curriculum development. Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence is typical of these trends, stressing that teachers are agents of change. This paper draws upon empirical data to explore school-based curriculum development in response to Curriculum for Excellence. We focus on two case studies – secondary schools within a single Scottish local education authority. In the paper we argue that the nature and extent of innovation in schools is dependent upon teachers being able to make sense of often complex and confusing curriculum policy, including the articulation of a clear vision about what such policy means for education within each school. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper arises from observations made by the principal author, while on a recent sabbatical at the University of California at Santa Barbara, USA, regarding innovation-led undergraduate design teaching. This paper reports parallel educational approaches with those used in the UK in terms of design management and industry-led design for manufacture small group projects led by leading industrialists. However, this paper reports changes in the core mechanical engineering curriculum within the fields of micro-electronic mechanical systems and life sciences, not prevalent within the UK. In both of these areas, there is a need for cross-disciplinary bridging courses, which introduce new vocabulary, scientific principles, and experimental techniques. These courses require space to be created in what are often overcrowded curricula. This paper presents solutions to these problems so that new approaches can be developed for innovation-led design education within these cross-disciplinary fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper suggests that there has been a move away from teaching as a means of transmitting information, towards supporting learning as a student-generated activity. There has been much work relating to this in the arena of problem-based learning, which to date has been seen as a relatively stable approach to learning, delineated by particular characteristics and ways of operating. Most of the explanations of and arguments for problem-based learning, thus far, have tended to focus on (or privilege) the cognitive perspectives over the ontological positions of the learner. This paper suggests that problem-based learning (PBL) should be seen as a more troublesome learning space than it is because of the challenges of new and emerging technologies and what the constellation of 'learning' means. However, new curriculum spaces need to be created that help students to embrace contemporary dislocations and mediate rhetoric differently which will in turn encourages us to be brave teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the reasons behind the absence of central Government funding for enterprise and innovation at Further Education Colleges (FECs). Enterprise and innovation are, according to conventional wisdom, crucial in rebuilding the UK's economy and providing jobs. In pursuit of this, the Government has provided central funding for enterprise promotion and education for both Universities and Secondary Schools, but not for FECs. The review starts by looking at recent Government policy papers on enterprise and innovation, then briefly considers the current economic characteristics that lay behind the need for enterprise education and innovation. The efficacy of the current proposals is questioned, looking at the concepts concerning the type and level of intelligence entrepreneurs need, also touching on what types of innovations can be expected to increase employment. The paper concludes by asking if elitist or class bias plays a part in the exclusion of Vocational Education & Training students at FECs from central funding for innovation and enterprise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Physical education has long been caught in a time of ‘innovation without change’. Yet, despite a wealth of pedagogical innovations and policies, which encourage a reconsideration of the ‘traditional pedagogy’, teachers rarely move beyond the honeymoon period of implementation. Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore how communities of practice emerge, develop and support innovation that results in pedagogical change. Participants and setting: Six secondary school teachers from a comprehensive secondary school in the UK used the Cooperative Learning model, which was identified as the pedagogical innovation, to teach physical education for a minimum of four units of activity (6–8 lessons each). Teachers were supported by a researcher who acted as a boundary spanner. Research design: To support their understanding and use of Cooperative Learning the teachers' engaged with action research through (a) the analysis of their observations and reflections, (b) dialogue with the boundary spanner and colleagues, and (c) negotiation with their students. Multiple sources of data informed the study including: teacher reflections, a field journal, a Verification Tool, interviews, teacher observations, professional learning meetings, and discussions on social media. Data analysis: Data were analysed through constant comparison, inductive analysis and peer examination. Findings: The boundary spanner was a catalyst for the adoption and sustained use of pedagogical innovation, facilitating teachers' use of action research, driving social energy, and the subsequent emergence of a community of practice. Conclusion: If physical education is to move beyond the traditional pedagogies, then communities of practice are a professional learning strategy that can support pedagogical innovation with change, especially when boundary spanners help to get them started. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Innovative educational approaches for schooling require changes to the traditional teacher role towards operating as co-facilitators and co-learners, and working in teacher teams, with considerable professional learning supporting this. Professional learning communities (PLCs) have been acknowledged as highly effective, with their characteristics being identified with reasonable consistency. However, specific processes through which PLCs operate are less evident. Furthermore, there is little research about the links between PLCs and student learning outcomes in innovative contexts. This paper uses teacher interviews within three innovative case-study schools, and considers student learning outcomes and the links to teacher learning within PLC contexts from a teacher perspective. Findings provide specific examples of PLC learning processes with regard to co-planning, co-teaching and co-assessment. Using achievement data, student work samples, teacher observations and self-reports, all teachers perceived that PLCs supported changes in their practices relevant to innovative contexts. Teachers indicated increased learning outcomes for students in terms of achievement, social skills, emotional aspects, independence and creativity. Significantly, the overall key impacts arising from effective PLCs operating within innovative contexts seem to be increased well-being of teachers and students. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Effective dissemination is crucial if innovation and development in teaching and learning in higher education are to lead to sustainable changes in practice. In 2003, King used an agricultural metaphor to challenge innovators to understand the purposes behind their dissemination aims. Similar to the way that seed can be spread, one could choose to widely scatter the information, and hope it grows wherever it lands; one could actively direct the scattering; or one could nurture and propagate future adoption in an ongoing manner. A recent investigation into dissemination strategies used in Australian teaching and learning innovation grants shows that certain dissemination strategies might make the ground more fertile and receptive to the seeds sown. To those engaged in funded projects grappling with translating project outputs and outcomes to sustainable changes in practice, this paper offers a framework and tools designed to help prepare the soil and cultivate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the potential of technology-enabled feedback to improve student learning. ‘Technology, Feedback, Action!: The impact of learning technology upon students’ engagement with their feedback’ aimed to evaluate how a range of technical interventions might encourage students to engage with feedback and formulate actions to improve future learning. The study used qualitative methods and worked in partnership with 23 undergraduate students to explore their experiences of receiving different forms of feedback with varying degrees of technical intervention including, but not limited to, electronic feedback with grades withheld; online grade publication; criteria-based feedback; and more traditional feedback methods. Through a series of semi-structured interviews, student participants were encouraged to articulate their experiences of feedback. The online publication of grades and feedback and the adaptive release of grades were found to significantly enhance students’ engagement with their feedback. Data were analysed using a thematic approach, and the main themes were used to inform the development of a series of good practice guides. The findings are discussed in the context of current literature. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Faced with the challenges of the changes in: higher education, educational developers’ roles and the use of innovation to stimulate change, this study aimed to synthesise literature dealing with the diffusion of innovative learning and teaching practices in higher education to determine what lessons could be learnt. The findings suggest that the following need to be considered if innovations are to influence widespread change: senior management support, recognition of the time needed to change practices, appropriate skill development, contextualised innovation, supportive networks and a solid institutional infrastructure. The paper also considers the difficulties faced when trying to generalise guidance in an area wrought with the complexities of change and calls for further research that problematises the realities of innovation diffusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the opportunities and challenges for re-framing the purpose, process, product and assessment of final-year geography dissertations. It argues that the academic centralities of critical thinking, analysis, evaluation, effective communication and independence must be retained, but that the traditional format limits creativity and innovation. Re-imagining capstone projects has implications for students, faculty, departments and institutions, but greater diversity could enhance its relevance to students and employers, better aligning the student experience with the academic interests and future career demands of the 21st century graduate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introducing an educational innovation into any school context involves some challenge to existing practices. Transition Year is an innovative, optional, one-year programme taken by approximately half the 15-16-year age cohort in schools in the Republic of Ireland. Based on data from an extensive study of TY operating in six different schools, programme co-ordinators and school principals are identified as having key roles in the successful implementation of TY. However, exercising the collegiality both roles demand goes against established cultures of isolated individualism in Irish schools. Furthermore, maintaining TY's coherence and integrity in the face of threats from more established programmes offers particular challenges. For this innovation to be successful, active curriculum leadership by school principals is seen as crucial. The paper interrogates the evidence through the lens of the 2008 OECD study on school leadership and poses questions about the relevance and value of the OECD perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1980s higher education (HE) in the UK has been continually developing to meet the needs of a changing economy. An economy now based largely on knowledge and its transfer, rather than manual skills and labour, has led to an emphasis by the government on increasing the number of adults with high level skills to contribute to economic success. The widening participation agenda is an example of the government drive to increase the numbers and range of people attending university. It is within this context that the term innovation has grown in currency. A growing student population requires learning and teaching methods to be developed, adapted and changed to address the diversity of needs within it. Innovation in learning and teaching therefore may become vital to the success of an institution. But what encourages staff to innovate? The majority of this paper will discuss the context for the focus on innovation in HE in terms of its contributing factors, such as changing economic needs and the government agenda to widen participation. Brief discussion at the end will be given to one faculty's initiative to encourage staff to innovate within their own practice. This initiative presents the potential benefits of creating opportunities for staff to present, exchange and discuss new ideas as a stimulus to taking the first step in innovating. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]