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ECEs as Innovators
“Let’s try it out!”
Social Innovation in Atlantic Canada’s ECE Sector
ECE professional practice is highly compatible with the iterative test-and-learn cycles of innovation design. Every day, ECEs work with children in responsive, adaptive ways — trying out new ways to support their care and learning, gathering feedback from the children, and making adjustments to their environment and interactions. Participants in the ECE Lab applied this iterative approach to the sector’s systemic challenges around recruitment and retention of the ECE workforce. They created eight social innovation prototypes that offer new ways of addressing these challenges. Supported by embedded design coaches, each prototype was field tested and refined, and now all prototypes are offered here for use by anyone in the ECE sector.
Explore the insights and prototypes created in the Lab on this page. Then download a prototype action pack and try it out in your community.
Take action in your community or early learning centre with Prototype Action Packs
The ECE sector in Atlantic Canada has developed new tools and programs to improve working conditions for ECEs and access to professional learning and development. On this page you can explore the prototypes, learn about how they work and what they helped us learn in the lab, and download them to try out in your community or at your centre.
Each Prototype Action Pack download includes:
- A basic overview of the prototype and link to the short report that describes it
- Instructions for how to set up and test the prototype in your community or province
- Links to original examples from the ECE Lab to help you imagine what you might create
- Example questions for assessing prototype outcomes
