“School Champion” • Jr Botball 2018-19 Kickoff • Thur, Oct 4th • Wilson Middle School

Students attending the SD Botball Regional Tournament!

“We will be kicking off the School Year with a meeting of the School Champions on Thursday, October 4, from 4:30 to 5:30pm at Wilson Middle School ( 3838 Orange Ave., San Diego, 92105).. There will be familiar School Champions present, as well as some new Champions to meet, and it is always encouraging to have Rotary well represented at this initial meeting of the School Champions.

I view Rotary’s role as a facilitator for STEM projects, and some new projects will be presented to the Champions, as well as the popular Jr. Botball Robotics program.

Our Lead Coordinators this year will again be Phet Pease and Lily Vu Brown, and attached is Phet’s invitation to the School Champions and Principals to attend.”

Best of regards,
Doug Arbon
San Diego Rotary STEM Committee

Greetings Champions and Principals,

My name is Phet Pease and I teach STEM electives at Wilson Middle School. Over the past several years, Wilson has been working with the San Diego Rotary Club as part of their Rotary STEM Initiative, which makes a variety of STEM programs available to local schools. On behalf of the Hoover Cluster STEM leadership team, I would like to invite you to our STEM kick off meeting on Thursday, October 4th.

WHO: Hoover Cluster STEM Champions (or those who aspire to become one!)

WHERE: Wilson Middle School, 3838 Orange Ave, SD, CA 92105 in the library

WHEN: Thursday, October 4th from 4:30 – 5:30 PM

WHAT: Teaming up to provide more STEM opportunities for our students

WHY: To provide a Support Group for STEM champions across the Hoover Cluster

Light food and beverages will be provided! Each participating Hoover Cluster school that is represented at the meet up will receive a free gift for your site!

Please RSVP here through google forms!

STEM Champions, please fill out this survey prior to the meeting to let us know how we may best serve you this year.

Please extend this invitation to other colleagues at your school site or anyone else who you think might be interested! Please let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks,

Phet Pease

ST Math Blog: Engagement Thrives When Students Own Their Learning

September 11, 2018September 12, 2018

“Progress Tree” Design Checklist

Share Learning Goals w/ Students!

Link: Sample Student & Teacher “ST Math Progress Trees” — designed to help students visualize & internalize Learning Goals and then ‘own those goals.’
Read entire article here: ST Math BLog, Engagement Thrives When Students Own Their Math Learning

Excerpt: “Creating a Classroom Environment That Fosters Engagement…

As someone who has been designing visual goal setting and feedback systems for years, the CA Math & Science Challenge! designer thought that “the unifying goal of always working to help JiJi the penguin cross the screen in ST Math, no matter what the math concept, was brilliant,” and that ST Math’s visual feedback system was first rate. “The students always have a sense of progress and momentum. That goes a long way toward explaining why ST Math is so successful across many different schools and districts.”

Although ST Math was a game-changer, he knew that for the program to truly be effective, there is still a large role for administrators and teachers to play.

“Schools often need help with two areas. The first is figuring out how to embed ST Math into school culture and goal setting systems to increase student engagement in school and at home. The second is discovering how to motivate teachers to play and understand every ST Math topic, and each game’s math learning goals for the grade they teach. This prepares them to integrate ST Math into their math instruction and to apply the concepts that students are mastering to other subjects.”

Continue reading →

Want more diversity in STEM? • A Good Beginning Never Ends! • K-6 STEM Curriculum

September 7, 2018November 18, 2018

CA Math & Science Challenge! • K-6 STEM Sequence
If we want American math & science “athletes” to be stay competitive, we need to get every American child playing the game at a young age —giving them a lifelong Early Learning Advantage • “A good beginning ever ends… “

A Science and Information Technology Program modeled on the US Olympic Development Program.

Three steps to developing world-class math and science “athletes”:

Step 1: Get young children playing the “Game” of Math & Science–at a young age;
Step 2: Identify those with a true love for that game;
Step 3: Get them World-class Coaching in a Special Math & Science Learning Environment, an Active Learning Zone™.

• sTEm = science Technology Engineering mathematics
• I.T. = Information Technology

Teacher Training: K-2 ROBOTICS • “The Power of Project Trees”

September 7, 2018September 7, 2018

K-2 Robotics First Day: The Power of Project Trees!

We just published our first Instructable (pretty cool platform), K-2 Robotics First Day, and applied for the Infy Maker Awards Grant: https://t.co/JVDsc9XyMX

— MathScienceChallenge (@CalMathSci) March 7, 2018

#EarlyEd, #GirlsCanCode, #CSForALL

GoFundMe: STEM Programs for Underserved Youth

August 30, 2018September 11, 2018

TEACHERS NEED HELP to get more kids playing the game of math and science.

Teaching is tough! Especially teaching STEM (Science-Technology-Engineering-Math). In fact a recent study identified significant obstacles elementary schools face when they try to create world class hands-on STEM programs.

To learn how you can help us train STEM Teachers, please visit my GoFundMe Campaign

What a year for CA Math & Science Challenge!

August 30, 2018May 10, 2019

What a year it’s been for us at CA Math & Science Challenge. Our mission to empower teachers with effective sTEm curriculum has begun in earnest with schools throughout San Diego County.

For instance, Ms. Bolling, the new head of the robotics program at Innovations Academy Charter: using a curriculum that included our Challenge Trees and Coaching/Assessment Checklists, Ms. Bolling helped every K-8 child experience some level of robotics programming at Innovations.

: 2nd Graders receive instruction for LOGO based Probot robots.

We have continued to support the wonderful teachers in our Hoover Cluster as they strengthen their own robotics Robotics programs.

What started out as an after school robotics programs is starting to work its way into the regular classroom schedule as teachers experience student growth in independent problem-solving skills, coding, mathematics, and engineering. The 3^rd-5^th grade students at this cluster had two opportunities to participate in weekend Challenge Event Tournaments:

Junior Botball Challenge Event held at host school Hoover HS and
The very exciting Southern California Botball Regional Tournament., held at USD.

: Hoover cluster students participate to work against nothing but the clock as they solve up to 6 different C coding challenges in 3 hours’ time!

: Same great program…different students and different programming challenges at the SD Botball Regional Tournament!

Continue reading →

Thank You KISS Institute for Another Great Global Conference for Educational Robotics!

July 26, 2018September 7, 2018

Jeff Major Provided Live Commentary

This year’s Global Conference on Educational Robotics (GCER) combined:

International Botball^® Competition: Junior Botball (3rd-5th) and Botball (6th-12th)
KIPR Open Tournament: encouraging ongoing Robotics education beyond high school
KIPR Autonomous Aerial Robot Tournament (DRONES!)
and much more.

Let’s get our kids in the game! When students start programming and problem-solving at an early age, STEM skills become second nature. Junior BotBall starts in third grade! #EarlyEd, #STEM, #CSforall,#GCER2018, #JuniorBotball, pic.twitter.com/u0Y5dt7hKM

— MathScienceChallenge (@CalMathSci) July 25, 2018

The 2018 Global Conference on Educational Robotics (GCER) was held July 25, 2018 – July 29 at the Hyatt Regency Indian Wells Resort & Spa in Indian Wells, California.