Learn how Hacienda La Puente USD's Board, administrators, and teachers work together to revolutionize K-12 math education using hands-on coding and robotics, resulting in improved state math test scores, including a 344% year-over-year increase for a class.

Moderator: 

Mary Nicely, Chief Deputy Superintendent

California Department of Education (CDE)

Panelists (from Hacienda La Puente USD): 

Nancy Loera, Member, Board of Education

Dr. Alfonso Jiménez, Superintendent

The UC Davis Center for Integrated Computing and STEM Education (C-STEM) has teamed up with the Trinity County Office of Education to bring an exciting new approach to math learning for K-12 students from a rural mountain region with small and very small school districts. This partnership has helped to transform math education through the integration of coding and robotics, inspiring the involvement of both teachers and students in the continuation of STEM learning.

Since 2010, the University of California, Davis, Center for Integrated Computing and STEM Education, or C-STEM, has aimed to transform K-12 math, computer science and STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) education through integrated learning.

Twenty-five teachers from Redlands Unified School District in southern California recently completed training in integrating computer science into math education through a joint program offered by the University of California, Davis, and UC Riverside Extension. The Joint Computer Science Supplementary Teaching Credential Authorization Program has helped Redlands address gaps in student opportunity and achievement, and teachers’ skills.

The UC Davis Center for Integrated Computing and STEM Education (C-STEM) seeks to transform math and tech pedagogy through integrated learning, which connects concepts across subjects and curricula. Among the C-STEM Center’s primary objectives is addressing the disparity in academic performance of students traditionally underrepresented in STEM, referred to in education as the “achievement gap.” 

On September 2, 40 Black/African American middle and high school students and 10 staff from across Northern California visited UC Davis for Ujima Day—the culmination of the first year of the Ujima Girls in Robotics Leadership (GIRL) Project.

With a $2.4 million grant from the National Science Foundation, the UC Davis Center for Integrated Computing and STEM Education, or C-STEM, will establish a new initiative to introduce Black/African American girls to engineering and robotics and provide them with resources to lead in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, in their schools, communities and careers.

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.

C-STEM  provides a rigorous academic experience for students with 21st century problem-solving skills and preparing them  for post-secondary study and career in  STEM fields.