Innovative activity of teachers - myth or reality?

Introduction. The innovative activity of teachers is usually described as the creative activity of a sole inventor and the activity of mass teachers, who follow prepared algorithms in the framework of large-scale innovative projects. It is obvious that these types of activity differ considerably. More accurate structuring of innovative activity of the teacher will allow experts to describe more precisely objective essence of innovative processes and to find out more effective means of their stimulation both at the individual level of the teacher and at the level of a national educational system.

The aim of the publication was to discuss the questions of what is innovative activity of the teacher; whether innovative activity really exists in mass practice; how innovative activity can be stimulated.

Methodology and research methods. The research was based on the systematic approach. In the course of the research, the analysis of scientific and methodological literature and the survey among the teachers aimed at identifying the characteristics of their innovative activity were employed.

Results and scientific novelty. The whole cycle of promoting the use of innovations into practice is thoroughly examined: from subjectivity to objectivity; from creativity to reproductive activity; from objectively new result to the product of a sample; from resistance of environment against innovation to stimulation and coercion to its realisation. Characteristics of innovative activity of the teacher are determined and described by the level of distribution of the forthcoming innovation and the attitudes of professional community towards it. It is proposed and proved that the innovation activities of the teachers should be separated into three types: (type I) creative activity of the individual aimed at development of means, methods and technologies to obtain objectively new results; (type II) activities of the teachers focused on the implementation of ready tested innovations, but new for teacher-friendly professional environment, (start-up); (type III) innovative activity of the teachers as a routine operation in the innovation system as its element. The activity of the type I is not widespread; such activity cannot and should not be mass - not everyone can be engaged in it. Design activity corresponds to the type II; type III - activity of performers with the total development of innovation becoming the accepted norm. Mass introduction of a novelty is an innovative process, but not at the level of a certain subject, since a teacher, who acts (often involuntarily) on well-developed samples and algorithms, is not an innovator.

Practical significance. The dependence of efficiency of pedagogical innovations on the model of state policy in education is demonstrated. The reasons of the development gap of the Russian educational system in the field of innovations from the systems of other countries are disclosed. The conditions specific to each type of a teacher’s innovative activity, which need to be created for successful and more rapid implementation of progressive innovations, are allocated.

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