Session Description
“Collaborative education innovation in Saint Lucia and Haiti”
For the last two years, researchers from the State University of Haiti (Limonade), Wilfrid Laurier University, and the non-profit group, Raise Your Voice Saint Lucia, have been implementing and studying a model for education innovation in Saint Lucia and Haiti. The model combines core elements of the human-centred design approach to social innovation (IDEO, 2015) and emerging theories of innovation management (OECD Observatory for Public Sector Innovation, 2022) to position teachers as innovation leaders within a supportive innovation ecosystem. Teachers, principals and education administrators each play significant but connected roles within this system. Teachers are empowered to be key agents of change by empathizing with and learning from stakeholders, identifying opportunities and needs at the school level, and collaborating with teacher peers to prototype (test) new solutions. Principals foster an innovation culture at their schools and communicate findings from innovation projects to their peers and ministry leaders. Administrators within ministries of education are learning how to nurture and support teacher innovation teams and monitor a ‘portfolio’ of teacher-led innovations for strategic insights and promising solutions that can be further evaluated and scaled for broader impact. This session will describe the model of education innovation being evaluated and provide examples of innovations developed by teacher teams in Haiti and Saint Lucia. It will also highlight the changing perceptions and mindsets of principals and administrators regarding teacher-led innovation.