The initial paper has a conceptual approach and problematizes innovation in teacher education. While the term “innovation” often has positive connotations, it can also be regarded as a ‘buzzword’ that is associated with change and market logic or be overused to hype specific issues (Mozorov, 2014). When comes to teacher education, “innovation” has been associated with a number of issues, of which technology is the most common. The notion of innovation may seem out of place in a teacher educational context, especially if it is associated with market logic and technical-rational positions, where innovation is conceptualized and construed as something new, unique and often based on cutting edge technology. In this context, Ellis, Souto-Manning and Turvey (2019) suggest that “technology-based claims of innovation in teacher education [...] must be viewed critically” (p. 8) and that “many ‘innovations’ merely reproduce unequal and unjust situations, educationally and more socially” (p. 3). 

Here, the notion of “principled innovation” (Sirotnik, 1999; Mishra, 2020) offers a framework for connecting innovation to norms, values and ideas about the public good. Principled innovations have been suggested as: “the ability to imagine new concepts, catalyse ideas, and form new solutions, guided by principles that create positive change for humanity” (Arizona State University Mary Lou Fulton Teacher College, 2019). 

However, this framework also generates questions like: Who decides what a positive change for humanity is? Who would benefit the most? To what extent is it possible to foresee the innovation’s further development? The latter question could be exemplified with a technological innovation such as Facebook, which was first acknowledged as a socially connecting platform but was later also associated with hate, social profiling and political manipulation (González, 2017). 

Principled innovations could emphasize moral and political dimensions and thereby reinforce inequality and injustice. They might also miss disruptive innovations as emerging technologies that challenge the existing ones. Here, the notion of disruptive innovation offers a conceptual frame for understanding how innovations can emerge in teacher education (Bower & Christensen, 1995; Ortlieb, Susca, Votypka & Cheek, 2018).

In this conceptual paper we aim to contribute to the discussion about how the concept of innovation can be construed, understood and positioned and how it can be used in a teacher education context. Although the notion of innovation is used to understand developments that extend beyond the production of new technological devices, we here direct attention to the implementation of new technologies for use in the education sector and innovations driven by applying technology in new ways. Drawing on different understandings of the concept of innovation, the notions of innovation, principled innovation and disruptive innovation are problematized in relation to technological innovations in teacher education and as a frame of reference for the symposium.