Starfire Update - Winter Make-ups and Spring 2020

Dear Starfire community, 

Thank you all for your enthusiastic support as we have pivoted to offering our fun STEAM courses in the virtual classroom.

Some scheduling notes:

We are wrapping up Winter 2020 make-up classes by Friday April 10 and we are looking forward to starting Spring 2020 classes on Monday April 13.

Families may use their allotted make-up classes to try a new class. This is a great time to trial a Starfire Starbrite or Galaxy math class. Families with students enrolled in Electrical Engineering should use their classes for either math or coding class. Our digital classroom Electrical Engineering curriculum will be ready for launch in Spring 2020. 

The following are the total number of classes owed for winter make-ups, including the free trial

• Two Days: Almond Scratch Coding and Math, Gardner Bullis EE, Hillview Python Coding and EE, Loyola EE 

• Three Days: Encinal Math, Scratch Coding, Laurel Math, Scratch and Scratch Jr, Oak Knoll Scratch and Python Coding, Math

• Four Days: Escondido Math, Duveneck Math, Ohlone Math, Nixon Math, EE

We have reserved some classes for students at Las Lomita, La Entrada and Woodside who have more outstanding classes to make up. Students must attend Las Lomita, La Entrada and Woodside to attend classes specified for these schools. These schools are listed in the Notes section of the class. If you signed for make-up classes in excess of those owed, or for classes reserved for students at Las Lomitas, La Entrada, or Woodside, please email us with your child’s name, grade and the name of the class you would like to withdraw from.

Please check the class listings as we have many newly scheduled make-up classes over the next two weeks. Registration is open at: https://www.homeroom.com/sites/starfire-education-san-mateo

Thank you again for all of your patience and partnership. Thank you for learning with us. 

Best regards,
The Starfire team

Status Update - Newly Scheduled Make-Up Classes for Starfire

Dear Starfire Community,

We hope that your families are safe and well. 

Starting this week, we are offering Starfire math and coding classes in our virtual classroom. We are working hard to bring our electrical engineering class capacity online.

Our team of knowledgeable and enthusiastic teachers will be leading students and they are confident that the virtual classroom will be a great experience for your students. 

These are make-up classes in addition to one free trial class for the classes that were cancelled. There is no additional charge. 

We are adding make-up classes every day. Please visit Homeroom regularly to review classes by clicking on the link below. Classes are available on the honor system.
https://www.homeroom.com/sites/starfire-education-san-mateo 

Tomorrow, we are offering a Scratch II make-up class, led by Adrian, an experienced teacher and digital media designer and developer. 

Once registered, you will receive a calendar invite via email from the teacher approximately 2 hours before the class with a link to join the class.

Starfire Virtual classes will be held on Zoom.com. Zoom is well suited for educational instruction: teachers can share screens and whiteboards, poll students, establish breakout rooms, and implement many other powerful instruction techniques. Classes can be accessed at a later time for review. 

Students will require a device to view the live video class using Zoom. Zoom works on mobile devices. It isn't necessary to download the Zoom app.

We want to thank you for the immense show of support and enthusiasm we have received from our amazing parent community. We are truly all in this together. 

Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns.

Best,
The Starfire Team

Status Update on Starfire Virtual Classroom from the President of Starfire

Dear Starfire Families,

I hope this message finds you in good health and your first day with the kids home from school went as well as can be expected. Day one is behind us but each day ahead will be a learning experience. We are all in this together and will take each day as it comes.

At Starfire, we are excited about the possibilities of virtual classrooms to help engage your children in STEAM activities. We are collaborating with our teachers and partners to pull together a comprehensive curriculum plan to be delivered via a Starfire Virtual Classroom. 

Our goal is to bring the Starfire hands-on, learn by doing, critical thinking, problem solving pedagogy to the virtual classroom. We believe that the sessions should be a balance of education and entertainment, and understand younger students in particular will need special attention to keep them engaged in the virtual classroom and are keeping this in mind as we develop the experience. 

The Starfire Virtual Classroom will provide live video sessions with Starfire teachers over Zoom, a video conferencing platform that allows teachers and students to see and interact with one another. All virtual sessions through Zoom will be recorded so that you can rewatch the lessons with your child at any time. We plan to test the live video sessions starting late this week or early next week. 

Starfire Virtual Classroom classes will be organized by subject, grade and level. The kindergartner classes will be capped at four students, and the upper grade classes will be capped at five or six students, depending on the subject. We plan on offering classes five or six days a week and we will publish a schedule so you can select the subject and time that works best for you. 

During the virtual classroom sessions, your child will have the opportunity to meet students from other schools which will help expand their network and allow them to be social with others during this isolating time. 

In addition to our virtual classes we will offer 1-1 tutoring via Zoom for math, science, engineering coding, and languages with Starfire teachers.  

To make this shift in our after-school programming work, we will need the assistance and support of home caregivers, and appreciate your help in advance. 

If you have any questions or concerns regarding Starfire classes at your school please email info@starfireed.com or call me at 650-649-9575. 

These are difficult times for us all. Thank you for your patience and kindness during this challenging time. 

We wish all of you good health as you navigate the times ahead.

Sincerely,

Bob Cerf
President, Starfire Education

Status Update on COVID-19 from the President of Starfire - School Closures, Online Classes

Dear Starfire Community,

All of the schools made the announcement that they are closing effective Monday March 16, 2020. All After School classes are cancelled. 

We are working hard to formulate plans and implement a transition to virtual education as soon as possible. Virtual interactive classes will be hosted live online by a Starfire teacher on a set schedule. Classes will also be recorded for viewing at a later time. The students and teachers will interact online using video conferencing software in a virtual classroom. We will share our plans with you as they are formulated. Our goal is to start to offer classes virtually within two weeks. 

It would be helpful if you let us know the times of the day that you would like to see classes offered. Do you want weekend classes? 

Do you have an internet connected device available that your child can use for an hour to join the class? 

These are difficult times for us all. We are all trying to navigate these new waters. Thank you for your patience and kindness. 

We wish all of your family's good health.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding Starfire classes please email info@starfireed.com or call me at 650-649-9575. 

Sincerely yours,

Bob Cerf
President, Starfire Education

Fall Session Updates

Students collaborating on a math challenge

The leaves have turned amber and we hope you are looking forward to bountiful, enriching Thanksgiving celebrations.

We have some news and updates we would like to share with you. 

News from the Classrooms

Starfire teachers work to ignite a lifelong passion for problem solving and STEAM for their students. We are proud to share some news from our classrooms. 

Electrical Engineering at La Entrada

Adrian and Augustine facilitated a paper towers challenge. Students split into teams to design a tower that would meet certain design objectives. They then presented their design to acquire "funding" which they spent on the materials to actually construct their tower. Students enjoyed the competitive and open-ended nature of the challenge, while gaining insight into engineering in a more professional environment.

Scratch Coding at Oak Knoll

Iheoma led the class in creating Flappy, a game in which a character experiences gravity acting on them while needing to dodge obstacles that are flying at random angles across the screen. The project links movement and cartesian coordinates, as well as conditional logic to change characters or obstacle appearance. Students also created a score and high-score screen to interact with variables in the scratch environment.

Math Games at Laurel Lower

Ying introduced dominoes to the class. She used the numbers on each domino for a math game. Students were instructed to use the proper combinations of dominoes to represent a number with more than one digit. The purpose of the math problem was to derive the desired addition and/or subtraction results. Students in higher graders  were encouraged to extend their work to the multiplication and division. Ying encouraged the students to find different ways to achieve the same arithmetic result, so that they could expand their abilities to interact with numbers flexibly. Student were emboldened to take risks and share their reasoning with classmates.

Starfire Teacher Profile
Starfire Education teachers share their passion with students every day in classrooms around the Bay
Ying is a former university lecturer in Electrical Engineering, a parent, a Cupertino Union School District volunteer, and a Starfire educator 

Learn more about our amazing team at: https://www.starfireed.com/about-nav

Extrinsic vs Intrinsic Motivation for Starfire Students

Lighting the fire for S.T.E.M. from within

When students feel motivated to learn, they perform better academically, improve their classroom behaviour and gain a higher sense of self-esteem.  

Starfire teachers help their students find motivation to excel in critical thinking, problem-based learning and deep understanding of mathematical concepts. 

There are two basic ways to promote motivation in students:

Extrinsic Motivation:
A drive to engage in an activity because of a reward to engage in the activity or a punishment for not engaging.

Intrinsic Motivation:
An inner drive to engage in an activity for its own sake because it is interesting and satisfying in itself.

In extrinsic motivation, the primary motivator is external (i.e. you expect to get something for completing a certain task, or you want to avoid a consequence for not doing something). For example, a student studies for a test because they want to earn a good grade. Or they mind their behavior because they don’t want to lose their recess.

When children rely too much on external motivation, they learn to compare themselves to others and may give too much weight to other people’s opinions.  Extrinsic motivation can be a useful tool, especially when a student is trying something new and challenging.  

In intrinsic motivation students are pursuing the activity because they it  or see it as an opportunity to explore, learn, and achieve their potentials.

Intriguing research shows that when students have intrinsic motives for learning — when they engage not for external reward but because they find the activity itself interesting and gratifying — they become more likely to attach meaning to their work, explore new topics, and persist in the face of learning challenges.

Starfire teachers use research-based strategies for motivating students to learn. One example is below

Become a role model for student interest. Lessons are delivered with energy and enthusiasm.  Displays of Starfire teachers’ motivation and passion motivates our students. Starfire courses are personal. Teachers showing why they are interested in the material.  They talk about challenging STEM projects they have been a part of and problems they have tackled, from robotics competitions to working in design at Tesla.

Get in touch at info@starfireed.com to learn more about our approach to intrinsic motivation.

Dr. Jo Boaler - Starfire Math Hero

Starfire Math Hero!
Dr. Jo Boaler is an internationally renowned Professor of Mathematics Education at Stanford University.

Her work, which combines new information about how the brain learns with evidence on the best ways to approach and learn math effectively, shows that everyone can be a math person! 
We believe that with effort and perseverance and support, our students can become powerful S.T.E.A.M. learners.  

Starfire Education believes that Math is a fun, collaborative, and creative pursuit.
Starfire Education believes that all students are capable of achieving math greatness

You can find valuable resources for parents and teachers developed by Dr. Boaler at:
https://www.youcubed.org

Winter Session Updates

We are thrilled to be touching base with our Starfire community at the mid-point of Winter Session 2019. We are excited to be collaborating on critical thinking skill development, deep learning, and fun with our Starfire students.  

Class News
The Starfire curriculum emphasizes exploration and hands-on-learning over memorization.  This generates useful context for students that is helpful in learning and retaining new skills.  

Here are som fun examples of activities and challenges happening in Starfire classrooms:

• Luyi’s Art & Design class at La Entrada worked to turn 2D shapes into 3D forms.  The students created masks out of their newly formed 3D shapes.

• Tejal’s Electrical Engineering class at Brewer Island learned the concept of insulators vs. conductors and how those concepts apply to real world engineering scenarios.

• Jennifer’s Math class at Escondido completed a highly interactive workshop estimating the number of gems in a glass and the length of a string. Students were asked to explain/defend their reasoning and encouraged to risk conjectures.

Teacher Spotlight
We are proud of the enthusiastic, credentialed and dedicated teachers at Starfire.  We would love to share some information about one of the newest members of our team, Samina. Our Starfire Education instructor Samina started her career as a software engineer, working at places like Cisco and Oracle doing software development. More recently, she has focused on being a Technical Trainer and coding Instructor in a variety of settings. Samina is also community minded! She is involved in the training department of Women in Big Data.

She is also a mom to two teenage boys who share her love of reading, computers and museums. She has enjoyed mentoring her boys and wants to share that enjoyment with Starfire Education students.

Starfire Learning Tools
Design Thinking is one of the pedagogical tools our students use to solve problems.  The goal of a designer is to listen, observe, understand, sympathize, empathize, synthesize and glean insights. Design thinking is a strategy for solving problems through creativity, and innovation. Starfire teachers help students apply the skills used by designers to solve problems posed in their classrooms, whether they are posed in math, coding or engineering classes.  Design thinking as a problem solving method was developed at Stanford, and is a growing feature of STEM education. We love the research coming out of REDLab at Stanford University Graduate School of Education and its focus on the use of Design Thinking in K-12 Education.
http://www.stanford.edu/group/redlab/cgi-bin/publications_resources.php

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