SeeMore's Core Strategies in Mathematics (CSM) course addresses multiple barriers to college access and completion by creating a "stepping stone" into college that is accessible by people who don't have the confidence to enter -- or the skills to succeed at -- postsecondary education. For too many people, entering college is putting money, effort, time, and ego on the line, when they don't believe in their ability to succeed. This affects most non-traditional prospective students, as well as most traditional prospective students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
CSM is a low-cost, online, self-paced course that uses next-generation adaptive learning to provide the following outcomes:
In a national evaluation by Stanford Research Institute comparing CSM to gold-standard programs from McGraw-Hill and Pearson, CSM showed the largest math gains and the highest student engagement.
As reported by Brookings Institute, in Tri-C's (Cuyahoga Community College) adult diploma program with mainly opportunity youth participants:
The first step of engaging with CSM is evaluating it for college math credit -- CSM has a recommendation from the American Council on Education (ACE) for 3 semester hours of college math credit at the lower division baccalaureate level.
Once articulated as college math credit, CSM uses include:
Non-profit SeeMore Impact Labs provides a host of free resources and services for implementation and support. In addition, SeeMore will provide free outreach to local schools, adult education, workforce development, employers and non-profits. Additionally, while students take CSM, it can include interludes marketing your programs.
Implementing any of the internal or external activities above starts with the college articulating the CSM Certificate for Credit for Prior Learning (CPL).
The CSM Course addresses key barriers improving both college access and completion for prospective and current students.
Many students lack the math skills to succeed at rigorous postsecondary programs.
Half of 18-year-olds have 4th - 6th grade math skills (including those who have high school diplomas) and half of college students fail algebra on their first attempt.
The CSM Certificate satisfies the general education math requirements for a degree at many 2- and 4-year colleges, so students can matriculate with their college math in the rearview mirror.
The CSM Course remediates as low as 5th grade math, and is highly supportive and designed for students with math anxiety.
Many students are not effective, independent learners, lacking in learning strategies, meta-cognition and mindsets, persistence, self-reliance, attention to detail, and more.
CSM explicitly focuses on creating active, engaged, independent learners.
Student learn skills on their own through reading instructional text. Through CSM and their coach, they are provided with feedback on their learning strategies, reading effectiveness, attention to detail, persistence, and more.
49% of adults don't believe that they have the skills to succeed at postsecondary education (Strada-Gallup, 2020). This lack of self-efficacy is a barrier to persistence as well as matriculation and college access.
CSM builds self-efficacy by presenting students with appropriate challenges and providing them the resources that they can dig deep and use to conquer them. As their skills grow, the problems become harder, and students find themselves doing math they never imagined they could understand.
"I took a lot of special needs math classes growing up. And so I didn't finish high school – I kinda gave up on it, because I was like I can't do math so I won't be able to do anything. I did the whole stay-at-home-with-kids things for awhile, and only worked at restaurants.
Then the CSM Course came along…I've always hated math, but I really enjoyed CSM! I don't know if it was all the concepts for problem solving that it gives to you, or the fact that whenever I got so frustrated that I was going to shut my computer, it would take me to somewhere else for a while.
I managed to finish, and I was so excited! I got my three credits for math, and I started college to be a substance abuse counselor.”
I had always wanted to help people, and the only thing that was holding me back in my mind was well, I can't do math. As if the people I was going to be helping were going to say ‘well, can you do math?’.
Looking back, I felt like I wasn't deserving a college degree, because I couldn't get through basic math. It made feel really upset, and I had kinda given up, really. To me, CSM saved me.”
The CSM Certificate has a recommendation from the American Council on Education (ACE) for 3 semester-hours of quantitative reasoning credit at the lower baccalaureate level, and satisfies general education math requirements at many 2- and 4-year colleges. Here is a comprehensive CSM syllabus for articulation evaluation.
If you fill in the contact form below, SeeMore will send you a syllabus, and can additionally provide CSM registrations or background presentation on request. On completion of the evaluation, our staff can work with your registrar to complete any paperwork that might follow, which depending on the college can include signing an agreement, placement of CSM in an articulation database, or other. Note that the CSM transcript is typically provided through a ACE Credly digital badge.
Many new or struggling students are facing similar issues, including anxiety around college math, and a passive and scattered approach to learning. CSM can be used to gain students the math credit they need, while also boosting their persistence, learning abilities, and confidence.
Applications include:
Note that these uses don't impinge on core college functions, and are compatible with popular programs like wraparound services (e.g. ASAP) or pathways programs (e.g. Guided Pathways). A college can start with a single program, and then expand as it gains experience with CSM.
Colleges share common interest in expanding postsecondary access with many community entities, including schools, adult education, workforce development and employers. Articulating CSM at your college incentivizes them to implement CSM in their own programs, leveraging their capacity, resources, and reach into the community to your benefit. Use of CSM in these community programs directly develops qualified leads for your college, and SeeMore can include at no cost information about your college and its programs into the CSM Course -- this is free marketing available to colleges that articulate CSM.
Community partners can include:
SeeMore has extensive experience in working with community education and training programs, and can lend a hand or take primary responsibility -- our community engagement help comes at no cost to your college.
Dual credit is one of the most successful college access and completion strategies, and allows high school students to gain college credit and a sense of membership in college. However, dual credit has a number of issues that are addressed by CSM, which operates through a Credit for Prior Learning model and includes many unique characteristics:
Dual credit works only in a high school setting.
As Credit for Prior Learning, CSM can be implemented across high schools, college bridge programs, adult education, workforce development, apprenticeship, corporate tuition assistance and other programs. This availability opens the door to college for many non-traditional students.
Many schools lack a college-qualified math instructor.
Students learn CSM skills on their own, and CSM coaches are there to help the students learn how to do this. Coaches do not even need to be math instructors.
Most students aren't eligible for dual credit classes (which rarely include any remediation), as they may need to meet a minimum academic threshold (often a 3.0 GPA and a minimum ACT or SAT score. In any case, most students aren't prepared for college-level work.
CSM embeds deep remediation down to 5th grade math, and combined with its training in general college success skills, even struggling students (such as those in credit recovery programs) can take and usually succeed at CSM.
Cost can be a major burden on students or schools -- both the cost of the college textbook as well as the cost of college tuition. This is particularly burdensome on students from disdavantaged populations.
CSM's low cost is a fraction of a college textbook, and the college credit comes with no extra fee.
If a student fails their dual credit class, this goes onto their college transcript, putting college financial aid at risk.
CSM comes in -- at the student's request -- as prior-learning transfer credit, avoiding any mandatory transcript issues.
Whereas the dual-credit approach (especially for math credit) is available only to top high school students, CSM's Credit for Prior Learning approach is applicable to the majority of high school students, as well as to non-traditional students throughout your community.
The three hurdles to college access and completion -- math skills, learning effectiveness, and low academic self-efficacy -- disproportionately affect disadvantaged and underserved populations. Without addressing these hurdles directly, it's hard to increase matriculation or completion.
CSM is a strategy for creating a pipeline of prospective students in schools, adult education, workforce development and more, who have earned college math credit, developed active, independent learning, and built a reservoir of self-efficacy. Students from turnaround high schools, opportunity youth, formerly incarcerated individuals, and low-literacy adults have all been shown to be able to readily complete CSM -- and in most cases to go on to college and thrive.
In addition, with your help or on our own, SeeMore will work to expand CSM use in the community -- we are a national non-profit with a mission to make lifelong learners who are confident enough to enter and skilled enough to complete postsecondary education, whether apprenticeships, certificate (e.g. industry-recognized credentials), or associate or bachlor degrees.
Finally, SeeMore can include information about your college and its programs, so as individuals take CSM and build their self-efficacy, we can direct their interest and newfound aspirations to your college. Furthermore, we can provide you with contact information for individuals taking CSM who agree to be contacted. All of this is a free service of SeeMore.
If you're interested in learning more about the CSM Course and how it might be used to increase college access and attainment at your college, please fill in the form below, or write us directly at hello@smilabs.org.
We look forward to hearing from you!
