Requirements and Criteria for Innovative Development of the Educational and Pedagogical Sphere in the Conditions of Information Technology

This article discusses the concept, requirements and criteria of educational and pedagogical innovations: novelty, optimality, resourcefulness, as well as their description and expression in knowledge and cognition, socioculture and socialization, in the formation of an information picture of the world among educational subjects through the means of the education sector and its information –communication environment. Educational and pedagogical innovation is considered as a categorical concept, and as a complex combination of two differentiated concepts: (a) pedagogical innovation from the point of view of pedagogical theory and digital didactics; (b) educational innovations in the professional and pedagogical activities of a teacher as a technical and technological basis for introducing innovation and ensuring the digital transformation of education. Based on these two positions, the article examines educational and pedagogical innovation in the context of the necessary differentiation of research into the impact of digital innovations on education and their potential for the subsequent integration of pedagogical and information technologies in teaching. The study notes that pedagogical innovations are related to the goals, methodology, content, forms and means of teaching, methods of subject teaching, assuming the presence of their novelty and optimality. Educational innovations consist of subject and meta-subject learning results and personal development of the subject of learning, obtained as a result of the implementation of one or another pedagogical innovation: innovative goals and methodologies, as well as the innovative process of this implementation. At the same time, to determine the requirements and criteria for the effectiveness of innovative development of the educational process in the context of digital learning technologies, they emphasize the importance of openness, flexibility, adaptability and the development of digital competencies. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2025.