Blended learning has been recognized as the most promising emerging trend in higher education, offering new capabilities, as it may significantly enhance the interaction and communication between instructors and students. The challenge of blended learning is to balance weaknesses and strengths of face-to-face and e-learning teaching environments and effectively combining them to provide enhanced learning capabilities. Its success should benefit instructor-student relation. To this end, the authors adopt ecosystem-based approach to model the blended learning environment and identify its constituents, i.e., instructors, students, consultants, technology. and their evolving relations. The proposed concept was utilized to explore the potential of blended learning in the academic environment. A study was conducted at Harokopio University of Athens over a period of three years to explore the relations between blended learning ecosystem constituents, focusing on instructor -student relation.

Greece and Portugal are two Southern European countries, with nearly the same population as well as a centralized educational system that follows the same vertical structure. Both countries were deeply affected by the economic crisis during the last decade. Despite being severely hit by the economic crisis, Portugal has advanced to the OECD average level in students’ mathematical performance in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA 2018), while Greece has performed below the OECD average. PISA, as one of the most influential international educational surveys, aims to evaluate educational systems and provides a valuable platform for comparisons. Portuguese students outperformed their Greek counterparts by 7 points in the first PISA 2000 and went on to widen the difference by 41 points in PISA 2018. In addition to having increased the average performance in Mathematics, Portugal has managed to reduce the percentage of low-achieving students and at the same time increase the percentage of high-achieving students. According to PISA 2018 reports, Portugal is the only member of OECD that has experienced significant improvement in mathematics performance of their students through its participation in PISA. In contrast, the performance of Greek 15-year-old students in mathematics has not improved and has remained below the OECD average since it participated in PISA. What national strategies have been set up and implemented in Portugal so as to foster student’s mathematical literacy competencies? A clear curriculum, students’ regular assessment, teachers’ training and the Action Plan for Mathematics. But despite that fact, the Mathematics performance of Greek 15-year-olds students in PISA in all cycles of PISA remains below the respective OECD average, in contrast with Portugal, that has registered a quantum leap (Crato, 2020). The main aim of this research is, through a recording of the Greek and Portuguese students’ mathematics achievements in PISA and at the same time of the Mathematics Education in both countries, through available policy documents and research reports, to comment on the current outcomes of the two educational systems and their students’ performance in Mathematics.

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Students’ attitudes towards science have long occupied the interest of the scientific community. The confirmed decline of students’ interest in pursuing the study of science, alongside the increasing recognition of scientific knowledge’s importance and economic utility, makes the issue even more imperative for any society attempting to raise its standards of scientific literacy. Attitudes towards science have been found to depend on variables like instructional teaching and curriculum. The latest research indicates that childhood experiences serve as a major influence on academic interest. The broad recommendation is to concentrate on improving 10 to 14-year-olds’ experience of science. Despite the recent flurry of media interest and the latest research in the scientific community, the school curriculum in most countries is still teaching obsolete science with scarce reference to current, cutting-edge scientific research. There is an urgent need to introduce the concepts of 20th-century Physics within the curriculum and exciting science programs that will enhance the interactive learning experience among students, as is shown by evaluating reports of OECD and PISA results. While this has led to several changes in the curriculum of secondary schooling in some countries, it is still an imperative case for others and definitely for Greece. There are some individual or institutional projects around the globe that introduce modern science and technology to upper primary students, yet of no nationwide effect. This paper aims to review the latest research on students’ attitudes towards science and to present the possible next research steps in amplifying students’ interest and engagement in science.

After the wide acceptance of hybrid learning methods in the Harokopio University of Athens, it was decided to explore the support of a lecture video service and its impact in hybrid learning process. Such evaluation should explore the affect of the specific technology in the learning process and focus on the relation between technology and participants and also participants' relations. Towards this direction, the concept of the Hybrid Learning Ecosystem is adopted. The scope of this paper is, first to explore the interactions evolving between instructors, students and the underlying technology utilizing the lecture video service and, second, to assess the usefulness of this new service based on the identified relations. To evaluate the contribution of lecture video service in the Learning Ecosystem of Harokopio University, this new service was supported for an undergraduate course in two Departments of the University having students with diverse background and skills. The study was conducted for a period of three years.

To solve problems, specific skills are needed. Critical thinking can help develop such skills. It can contribute to improving problem-solving skills, developing communication skills and cultivating decision making skills. Critical thinking is considered to be a key pedagogical goal in education. Education of informatics and critical thinking have a strong relationship since students cannot develop skills related to Informatics if they cannot think critically. Therefore, within the informatics textbooks the cultivation of critical thinking skills should be promoted. The present paper aims to determine to what extent the cultivation of critical thinking skills is promoted in the Informatics textbook of the first class of the Greek lyceum. This textbook contains thematic units referring to hardware-software and applications, programming environments-applications development and communication collaboration and security within Internet. The method that was used is the quantitative content analysis. The present research revealed that within the examined textbook cultivating critical thinking skills is promoted insufficiently, since in the whole text, the cultivation of critical thinking skills is promoted in a small percent of the text it covers. In the examined material, the critical thinking skills whose cultivation is promoted are the interpretation skill, the analysis skill, the evaluation skill, the inference skill and the explanation skill. The interpretation skill is represented by the categorization sub-skill and the clarifying meaning sub-skill. The analysis skill is represented by the examining ideas sub-skill. The evaluation skill is represented by the assessing claims sub-skill. The inference skill is represented by the querying evidence sub-skill, the conjecturing alternatives sub-skill and the drawing conclusions sub-skill. The explanation skill is represented by the stating results sub-skill and the presenting arguments sub-skill. Moreover, it was found that within the examined text, the cultivation of the self-regulation skill is not promoted. The only parts of the examined text in which the cultivation of critical thinking skills is promoted in the largest percentage of the text they cover are the teaching objectives and in the activities.

Blended learning has been recognized as the most promising emerging trend in higher education, offering new capabilities, as it may significantly enhance the interaction and communication between instructors and students. The challenge of blended learning is to balance weaknesses and strengths of face-to-face and e-learning teaching environments and effectively combining them to provide enhanced learning capabilities. Its success should benefit instructor-student relation. To this end, the authors adopt ecosystem-based approach to model the blended learning environment and identify its constituents, i.e., instructors, students, consultants, technology. and their evolving relations. The proposed concept was utilized to explore the potential of blended learning in the academic environment. A study was conducted at Harokopio University of Athens over a period of three years to explore the relations between blended learning ecosystem constituents, focusing on instructor -student relation.

"It cannot be denied that there are always problems societies and individuals have to deal with. To confront these problems in living conditions that seem to be constantly and rapidly changing, specific competencies are needed. Critical thinking is indispensable in developing such competencies effectively. It can support identifying, constructing and evaluating arguments. It can also contribute in improving problem solving skills. Critical thinking is essential to develop decision making competencies and communication skills. Furthermore, people can use critical thinking in order to confront their biases, prejudices and stereotypes. It is clear that critical thinking is useful and necessary in multiple areas. For that reason, critical thinking is considered to be a key pedagogical goal in many levels of education. For this reason, modern education seeks to promote the cultivation of critical thinking. In particular, education of Informatics is strongly related to critical thinking. Students cannot develop skills related to Informatics if they cannot think critically. Therefore, critical thinking is essential for teaching Informatics subjects. Consequently, within the Informatics textbooks the cultivation of critical thinking skills should be promoted. The present research aims to determine whether there are critical thinking skills whose cultivation is equally promoted within the Informatics textbook of the second class of the Greek Lyceum. The method used in this paper is Qualitative Content Analysis, which is established in the social sciences for texts analysis. The findings of the present research revealed that within the examined textbook there are no critical thinking skills whose cultivation is equally promoted."