EQuIPD- Engaged Quality Instruction through Professional Development seeks to establish and
test for efficacy of a professional development model to produce highly qualified teachers in
STEM practices for all children, especially for students who are in traditionally underserved
schools and districts within the State of Florida. EQuIPD seeks to establish local factors which
promote or inhibit scale-up for EQuIPD, and to determine if this PD aids in teacher retention.
EQuiPD has designed a sustained, intensive PD model to increase STEM (science, technology,
engineering, and mathematics) pedagogical content knowledge of teachers in: System Thinking
((ST) see Appendix A and Section B for more information), standards-based lesson design
incorporating inquiry, computational thinking (CT), technology integration, and engineering
design. EQuIPD has one targeted goal: Create a three-year teacher PD program to support K-9
teachers in a train-the-trainer model for development of highly qualified STEM teachers and
implement it to provide extensive support and mentoring for teachers in order to (a) improve
student learning outcomes; (b) enhance teacher content knowledge and pedagogy; and (c)
improve teacher retention. Two years of training sessions will be followed by a third, more
independent year to establish and build a model for sustainability of PD by districts and to study
factors which support or inhibit scale-up for the PD. EQuIPD develops highly qualified and
effective teachers in two ways: 1) Providing training in technology-centered, evidence-based
teaching practices for successful student outcomes. 2) Providing sustained mentoring, advanced
trainings, and STEM network building for teachers thus ensuring teachers have a supportive
community. EQuIPD will span schools in 10 urban to rural counties within Florida including;
Hillsborough, Palm Beach, Heartland Consortium (Hardee, Hendry, Okeechobee, Glades,
DeSoto, Highlands), St. Johns and Manatee. These districts account for over 30% of elementary
schools on Florida’s lowest 300 list and contain 12 schools listed as persistently low performing.
(FLDOE, 2017) EQuIPD will recruit teachers at elementary and middle schools from this list to
participate in a randomized controlled study to measure EQuIPD program effectiveness.
Priorities Addressed: In Figure 1., the first goal of EQuIPD addresses AP1 Supporting
Effective teachers by a) Providing teachers with Evidence-based professional development
activities that address needs of LEAs and the students the agencies serve, and b) Providing
teachers with Evidence-Based Professional enhancement activities, which may include activities
that lead to an advanced credential.