UC Davis C-STEM Updates

A Message from the Director Dear C-STEM Partners, We at the C-STEM Center hope that 2015 has been treating everyone well. We continue to provide STEM teachers with more professional development opportunities on Common Core State Standards-Math integrated with  hands-on robotics and computing activities.  As the C-STEM program has been granted UC A-G Program Status and is now also classified as a UC Educational Preparation Program for Undergraduate Admission for all UC campuses, we are hoping to further expand the C-STEM program to reach more students across the state, closing the achievement gap in math and science education. We are looking forward to working with more schools in this upcoming year as we expand across the state.  -- Dr. Harry Cheng, C-STEM Center Director and Professor

CDE One-Day Professional Development The California Department of Education has sponsored multiple One-Day C-STEM Professional Developments in San Diego, Los Angeles, and Santa Clara.  The Professional Development will focus on  Integrating Computing and Robotics into Mathematics, Science & CTE to Close the Achievement Gap & Preparing Students for Career and College. Applications for the one-day workshop must be submitted by pairs of STEM teachers from a single school site. Each pair of teachers from the same school will receive 1 robot and 3 C-STEM textbooks.   The date for the Los Angeles and Santa Clara locations are still being determined.  The San Diego Professional Development will take place on February 26th 2015 at Qualcomm, hosted by the  San Diego County Office of Education.  Participants must RSVP by Tuesday, February 17th. More information regarding the One-Day Professional Development and how to register can be found on the website.

Train-the-Trainer Program The C-STEM Train-the-Trainer Program allows district and county office of education personnel, as well as college and university faculty of C-STEM Affiliates, to become certified C-STEM Trainers who can hold C-STEM certified training for the C-STEM curriculum in their geographic area.  Certified C-STEM Trainers have prerequisite eligibility requirements related to programming, teaching, and coaching/mentoring experience as well as a necessary agreement between the C-STEM Center and the C-STEM Affiliate. The first C-STEM Train-the-Trainer Institute will be held at UC Davis on March 23-27, 2015. Those interested in this program should contact the C-STEM Center at   info@c-stem.ucdavis.edu or  (530) 752-9082. More information about the program can be found on the website here.

2015 C-STEM Day The 2015 C-STEM Day has been expanded to multiple locations: UC Davis, UC Irvine, and UC Berkeley . Each location will be hosting the C-STEM Day on May 30th 2015. C-STEM Day is split into two events: RoboPlay Competitions and  Math Programming Competition . All locations will have the Roboplay Challenge Competition and RoboPlay Video Competition. The Math Programming Competition will only be taking place at the UC Davis location. More information regarding the event and deadlines for registration s, submission for the competition and award nomination can be found on the website. Applications for the Award and Scholarships presented during the award ceremony on the C-STEM Day are due May 1 2015  . In order to successfully run this event at all of the locations, we are seeking volunteers to assist with coordinating the event, creating challenges for the competition, and judging the competitions. More information regarding the volunteer positions that we are hoping to have can be found on the "Get Involved" section of our website.

2015 C-STEM Summer Institute The C-STEM Summer Institute is designed to train K-14 STEM teachers on the principles of robotics and computing and how to integrate them into STEM classes. The institute will be held at UC Davis. There are two one-week courses offered: June 29 - July 3: Common Core Mathematics with Computing and Robotics July 6-July 10 :  Robotics Activities and Computer Programming for Solving Applied Problems Early Registration: May 30 $699 for 1 course|$1299 for both Final Registration: June 20 $799 for 1 course|$1399 for both Educators are encouraged to take one or both courses to start integrating computing and robotics into their teaching. CEU credits and on-campus housing are available for participants.  For teachers who have no prior computer programming experience, we recommend that you attend the entire two-week summer institute . More information regarding the program and registration can be found on the website .

STEM Summer GIRL Camp The C-STEM GIRL Camps are focused on motivating girls in middle school entering 7th or 8th grade in Fall 2015 to learn computing and STEM concepts through a fun and exciting robotics-based curriculum. We hope this leadership camp will enable them to serve as leaders and inspire other young girls to gain interest in science and technology through creating and joining robotics clubs in their schools and participating in the RoboPlay Competition on C-STEM Day. The camp participants are also eligible for the Girl’s Leadership Award. The camp will be held on July 27-31, 2015 at UC Davis. Registration is free but spaces is limited.   The deadline for registering is March 31 2015.  If interested, you can find information regarding the GIRL camp and registration on the website .

Job Opportunities at C-STEM  The C-STEM Center is expanding and looking for applicants to join our staff with full-time and part-time positions. Complete requirements and job descriptions can be found on the website.  Below is the brief job description for  one of full-time positions available.  C-STEM Assistant Director Under the general direction of the Director of the UC Davis Center for Integrated Computing and STEM Education (C-STEM), the C-STEM Assistant Director plays a leadership role in planning, design, development, coordination, implementation, and evaluation of the C-STEM program and new initiatives in different regions in California and nation. The Assistant Director is responsible for marketing, grant writing, and collaboration with federal and state agencies, foundations, companies, colleges, county offices of education, districts, and schools. Please see our website for additional job openings.

$1.8M CDE Grant, CaMSP PRISM  This C-STEM project entitled “Programming and Robotics Integrated into Science and Mathematics (PRISM)” is funded with $1.8 million dollars for three years by the CaMSP program of the  California Department of Education, through a partnership with Solano County Office of Education (SCOE). The project provides intensive and follow-up training in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics for STEM teachers.  The project is recruiting over sixty highly qualified math, physical science or math-based Career Technical Education teachers from 6 school districts to participate in the project. PRISM will provide new modules that integrate mathematics  and science with technology and engineering through computer programming and robotics, rooted in the current C-STEM curriculum and courses.  STEM teachers from the participating districts in Solano County and Contra Costa are encouraged to participating in the project and can found more info  about the project at the website .

The C-STEM Center showcased through Change the Equation|STEMWorks The C-STEM Center has been recently chosen by Change the Equation | STEMworks to be showcased as one of their premier STEM programs with an Accomplished rating.  STEMworks is viewed as a source for high-quality STEM education programs and each program in STEMworks has been independently vetted and cleared a very high bar for quality.  Business leaders, funders and STEM advocates from across the nation use STEMworks to find proven and highly-scalable STEM education programs to help them maximize their impact on STEM education.

Approved A-G Courses  As of August 2014, C-STEM has been granted UC A-G Program Status. This means that high schools can easily add C-STEM A-G approved courses to their own school's “A-G” course lists without submitting a complete course content description and going through the traditional approval process with UCOP. In 2014-2015 academic year, in addition to the middle school curriculum, we  fully support the following C-STEM A-G approved courses : High School Curriculum with A-G approval: Math "C" category Algebra I with Computing Algebra I with Robotics and Computing Integrated Math I with Computing Integrated Math I with Robotics and Computing Elective "G" category Introduction to Computer Programming with C Computing with Robotics All courses are aligned with the Common Core State Standards in Mathematics, new Career Technical Education Model Curriculum Standards from the Information Communications Technologies industry pathway, with hands-on robotics and computing activities.

New Available Resources Some new resources available for anyone  are RoboSim for programming virtual robots and the PDF version of the textbook Learning Robot Programming with Linkbot for the Absolute Beginner. Access to these C-STEM resources is free and available to anyone who  registers to download from the C-STEM  website .  The PDF version of the textbook  Learning Computer Programming with Ch for the Absolute Beginner is available to only registered C-STEM teachers and their students.