CSM is the world's most advanced personalized instruction
CSM is the first learning technology to personalize instruction in three areas of student performance:
Cognitive
math
literacy
CSM guides students on a personalized path through skills using the Goldilocks principle - they always work on skills that are not too hard or easy for them at the moment but are "just right", where they have to work hard and can be rewarded with success. Furthermore, CSM identifies specific student thinking errors, improving learning effectiveness. This adaptivity allows students of all abilities to complete CSM, without wasting anyone's time.
Meta-cognitive
learning strategies
problem-solving
Students take control of their own learning by making choices among learning resources oriented to different learning styles. CSM provides feedback on how their learning choices affect their learning success, and analyzes and responds to student answers to meta-cognitive questions. Furthermore, a substantial part of CSM curriculum is devoted to problem-solving strategies - what the question is asking, where the information is, what information is relevant, and how to break problems into parts and get started.
Non-cognitive
behaviors
self-identity
The "secret sauce" of success is self-efficacy - the deeply held belief that you can succeed, informed by personal experience - which CSM students learn by seeing themselves succeed at challenging learning situations. CSM measures behaviors (especially those related to frustration) and intervenes with the "kitchen sink" of educational psychology and behavioral economics to build student growth mindset and persistence.
CSM teaches awesome skills
The math, literacy and problem-solving that CSM teaches are critical to success in school, college, work and life. These are skills that everyone can use in daily life, and many are unique to CSM. The example problems below are Core Skills that every person completes to earn their CSM Certificate.
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Logic problems
CSM includes complex logic problems of the type that are frequently encountered in technical and financial fields. The challenges include multiple requirements and dealing with missing information (in this case, e.g., there is no information provided on the computer's bus speed). -
Graphs
In addition to teaching how to read specific values from graphs, CSM takes a broader view of graphical literacy, including using graphs to answer qualitative questions and look for trends. -
Units
Units are critically important to applying math in the real world - nothing is just a "10", it's 10 feet, 10 meters, $10 or 10 cars. CSM teaches students to focus on units as part of all applied operations. CSM also builds an intuitive sense of conversions and metric and English units. -
Proofreading
Professional communication is vital, and CSM both teaches common grammar errors and builds the attention-to-detail and carefulness required for detailed proofreading. -
Problem solving
Problem-solving is a key part of the CSM curriculum: what is the question asking? where is the information? what information is relevant to solving the problem? what are the steps, and what is their order? This question focuses on planning - students must only determine HOW they will find the profits for Hair of the Dog in March, but there are no numbers for them to execute the plan. -
Literacy
CSM takes a deep view of literacy, including knowing where to find information. In this problem, students must determine what information they would likely be able to find in a report from only the title and how the report is organized. -
Mental math
Mental math is the gateway to all quantitative analysis and estimation-driven decision-making, and CSM provides an introduction to mental calculation that is challenging even for most college graduates.
