The single-semester, self-paced, online Core Strategies for Mathematics (CSM) course is not just a math course, but also builds what we call High Performance skills that prepare students for success in college and career, and boost college-going confidence.
CSM operates on the notion that poor math skills are usually a reflection of students who are not effective learners, and that addressing a student’s learning strategies, mindsets and behaviors will substantially accelerate their acquisition of math, while also improving their performance in other classes. CSM's next-generation personalized learning, by attending to how students learn, act, and feel, simultaneously builds:
At the same time, CSM also allows students to earn college math credit and a Credly High Performance skills certificate aligned with the Common Employability Skills framework
While dual-credit math credit is generally only available to your most advanced students, CSM was designed for accessibility by students with deep math remediation needs or who more generally struggle in school. Now, most students will have a chance to earn college math credit.
CSM is very inexpensive, easy to implement, and comes with free professional development, teacher tools, and support.
Non-profit SeeMore Impact Labs' will work with you at no cost on:
CSM is new, and its very different -- that doesn't mean it's hard. Click here to contact us -- we can tell you more about CSM, hear about your needs, and explore how CSM might help.
Powered by next-generation learning technology that simultaneously personalizes instruction in academics and how you learn, act and feel.
Learn MoreCertifies High Performance, employability skills, and earns college math credit.
Learn MoreA new approach to career development focusing on learning the skill of making career decisions throughout your life.
Learn More"[Our high school has] an extremely challenging student population – 85% of students are free and reduced lunch, many students are minority, undocumented and/or otherwise at-risk, and about two-thirds of the students at an unsatisfactory level on the state proficiency test... [with] a 49% dropout rate.
Remarkably, the majority of students made substantial progress on CSM – including many who started at very basic math and literacy levels. The consistent feedback from the teachers has been that CSM makes the students work hard – it doesn’t let them off, and it doesn’t let them guess. Yet instead of frustrating the students, they appear to enjoy working with it.
...the unanimous feelings of the math teachers involved in the program is that students are learning in ways they haven’t before. CSM is extremely exciting to me in its potential role in building not only the math skills of students, but also their general interest in academic work, and their ability to learn.
CSM is very different from the other computer-based systems that I have seen – it is not narrowly competency-based, and it addresses the deficits that many struggling students have both in their feelings about learning as well as the learning strategies that they use.
This will also be of particular benefit for those teachers who need professional development with intervention or more generally in dealing with struggling students."
CSM is intensely personalized, and remediates down to 4th grade math. CSM deepens intuition based on mental math, integrates math with document literacy, develops problem-solving strategies and mindsets, and requires 100% mastery.
Students at all levels can succeed at CSM given time and support, building college aspirations and math confidence by knowing that the CSM Certificate is accepted as college math credit at many colleges.
The CSM Course is often implemented as a math course, but it is also a "High Performance" employability skills course focused on the transferable skills needed in all jobs. The CSM Course is aligned with key aspects of the widely adopted Common Employability Skills framework, and is used in corporate upskilling in both blue- and white-collar environments from frontline workers to managers with advanced degrees, including in tech-heavy sectors such as energy and water/wastewater treatment.
If your schools have advanced training programs like Project Lead the Way, Ford Next Generation Learning (NGL), pre-apprenticeship programs, etc., CSM can significantly expand the number of students who are prepared to succeed.
In addition, the Career Strategies mini-course teaches the skills of making career decisions throughout your life, filling in an important cultural capital gap in most CTE pathways.
Many students struggle in school because they aren't effective at learning -- they may have faulty learning meta-cognition, have poor exploration mindsets, lack persistence or attention to detail, or be satisfied with C-level work. The CSM Course addresses these and other issues head-on in a way that students feel consistent success.
Even though students have teachers, it's the students' job to learn the math skills on their own -- the teachers role is to help them do this. CSM will be directly giving students feedback -- and providing the teachers with real-time information and intervention strategies -- on student learning deficits. With a passing score of 100% on mainly fill-in-the-blank questions, students develop better attention to detail, and learn that they are capable of A-level work -- and how good it feels!
Many students simply don't believe that they're "college material" and fear of college math requirements keeps them from going to college.
The CSM Course builds confidence in many ways.
For many students, these methods cast their skills in a new light and students see themselves as capable of succeeding in college.
All this while earning college math credit!
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 implementation issues that are addressed by CSM, which operates through a Credit for Prior Learning model and includes many unique characteristics:
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.
An evaluation by Stanford Research Institute, comparing CSM to ALEKS from McGraw-Hill and MyFoundationsLab from Pearson, showed that CSM had the highest math and literacy gains relative to classroom learning, as well as the highest student engagement.
In an program for opportunity youth, Cuyahoga Community College was surprised to find that:
Pepco (the energy utility in Washington, DC) uses CSM in their program preparing high school graduates for high paying lineman positions. After completing CSM, passing rates on the industry-standard CAST test (which has a challenging math component) rose from 20% to 67%.
The teacher's role in the CSM Course is different from most instruction: it's the student's task to learn the skills on their own, and the teacher's role to help them learn how to do this -- we call CSM instructors "coaches". This also means that CSM coaches do not need to be college-qualified math instructors (or even regular math instructors) -- any teacher in the school can suffice.
To help teachers with this new role, SeeMore provides three types of free support:
In a High Performance High Schools, everyone in the school community is encouraged to take the CSM Course, working together to build their high performance characteristics and a spirit of communal purpose, effort, excellence, accomplishment and pride. "Everyone" is inclusive to mean the principal, teachers, office, cafeteria and janitorial staff, students, and even parents.
To learn more about High Performance High Schools or our special pricing for community implementation, email hello@smilabs.org for more information.
Some examples of our free assistance include:
If there are any other ways we could help, please contact us.
If you're interested in learning more about the CSM Course and how it might be used to increase college and career readiness at your school, please fill in the form below, or write us directly at hello@smilabs.org.
We look forward to hearing from you!
