The EQuIPD program has run for three years with great success and many accomplishments that we are excited to share. We received the final evaluation from SERVE, our external evaluator, and the results turned out positive and impactful on teachers and students who participated in the program. Our program resulted in What Works Clearing House success in regards to impact on teachers that participated in the program.

Linked are the Final Report and Executive Summary of the grant findings prepared by our external evaluators at SERVE.

EQuIPD.executive.summary_FINAL_1_26_22

Final_ EQuIPD Report_Full report_1_31_22

We wanted to thank our teachers for all the hard work they have put into themselves, their teaching practice, and the grant. We have seen tremendous growth and transformation in each of them. It has been a pleasure and an honor to work alongside you all these past three years. Throughout our time together, the EQuIPD grant has hosted a total of 184 hours of professional development in the form of the Summer Bootcamps and the Follow-Up PD Workshops and over 40 hours of one-on-one coaching. The teachers developed countless conceptual models around their standards using system thinking and applied them to create lessons that followed the inquiry model development stages and design thinking frameworks. They also used process mapping, incorporated technology, inspired student collaboration and discourse, and built workforce skills in students.

Halfway through our journey, we all had to experience change and challenges as we worked through and overcame the hardships that COVID-19 brought upon teaching. Together with ingenuity, prowess, and support, we made a move to a completely virtual coaching and professional development model and spent a few too many hours in online meetings. Though moving to a virtual model had us working together alone, it opened an opportunity to grow a community of teachers across Florida that supported, pushed, and empathized with each other through the challenges brought by virtual teaching and learning.

This past summer (2021), the EQuIPD grant hosted a Professional Development Series, the crowning achievement in the train-the-trainer model developed in the grant. Your teachers all stepped up to the challenge to work with other teachers across ten school districts to design, develop, and facilitate a professional development session focused on grant goals and skills based on their expertise and the needs of their peers. The intervention teachers shared their understanding of conceptual modeling, process mapping, system thinking, technology, workforce, and inquiry-based lessons. The PD Series was the opportunity for our control teachers to learn about the grant and its goals through professional development.

We wanted to highlight some of the most notable achievements from the grant:

• Three 40-hour Summer Bootcamps
• Eight 8-hour Follow Up PD Sessions
• 107 different companies toured on field trips
• 50 hours of technology training ranging from sensors, probes, simulations, Microbit, Arduino, coding, and educational technology
• Over 45 Florida Teacher Certification Exams Passed
• 137 opportunities of EQuIPD teacher leadership