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Developing innovation competences in schools. A practical perspective.

Jan Fazlagić, Mirosława Kaczmarek, Cornelia Connolly

Abstract

This article argues that the development of innovation competences should take a more formalised role within the national education curriculum. The authors have developed a list of eighteen competences based on literature review and consultations with experts, with empirical results from a national study commissioned by the Polish Ministry of Development. The main purpose of the study was to propose a set of measures and recommendations in regard to the national reform of the education system in Poland. Based on extensive empirical data from that study the authors propose a set of hypotheses necessary to further investigate the possible relationships between variables analysed during the study commissioned by the Ministry, which include some of the demographic characteristics of Polish teachers in regard to their attitudes towards those competences. Although this is not the first endeavour in research on education to develop such a set of competences, the added value of this particular study is the acceptance and implementation of the research findings as a national benchmark in the Polish national education system. The results are of value to both teachers and teacher educators, and we position our research as Translational Research, attempting to bridge the gap between basic research and the world of practice, which involves teachers, as well as school and system-level leaders.

Keywords: innovation competences, innovation development, education system, teacher development, Translational Research

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AUTHORS

Jan Fazlagić

The author is a full-time professor at the Poznan University of Economics and Business in Poznan, Poland, and a former Senior Fulbright Scholar at Sam Houston University (TX, USA) and Marie Curie Research Fellow at the Centre for Social Innovation in Vienna, Austria, as well as a European Commission Lead Expert in the URBACT III programme. He is the author of over 300 books, research papers and popular media articles on knowledge management, intellectual capital, education and local governments. He was involved in a number of projects supporting Polish public institutions, including government agencies and ministries.

Mirosława Kaczmarek

The author is a professor at the Poznań University of Economics and Business. In her scientific activity she focuses on the research of consumer behaviour and the application of methods of statistical multivariate analysis in the analysis of this behaviour. She is especially interested in the behaviour of users of banking mobile applications. She popularises knowledge in this area on the financial portal "Obserwator Finansowy" (https://www.obserwatorfinansowy.pl), which functions with the National Bank of Poland.

Cornelia Connolly

The author is an Associate Professor at the School of Education at the University of Galway, where she lectures on postgraduate and undergraduate teacher education programmes. In addition to a Ph.D. in pedagogical innovation, she holds a B.Eng. (Hons) in Computer Engineering and M.Eng. (Hons) through research. Her teaching and research interests centre principally on STEM knowledge transfer where she has published extensively.

About the article

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15219/em96.1578

The article is in the printed version on pages 60-69.

pdf read the article (English)

How to cite

Fazlagić, J., Kaczmarek, M., & Connolly, C. (2022). Developing innovation competences in schools. A practical perspective. e-mentor, 4(96), 60-69. https://doi.org/10.15219/em96.1578