SeeMore Impact Labs began with a grant from the US Department of Education to determine the skills individuals need for success in education, work, and life. This resulted in the CSM Course that builds the math skills of highest value for work and life, as well as the skills of High Performance and Lifelong Learning. The value of this course has been vetted across an unprecedented range of use: across venues (schools, colleges, adult education, workforce development, employee upskilling), ages (15 to 65+ years) and educational backgrounds (low-literacy adults to those with advanced degrees).
Building on this breadth of use, Excel Together Initiatives embed the CSM Certificate across a community as a valued credential demonstrating High Performance and Lifelong Learning -- the skills people need to thrive in college and the workplace. Excel Together works with colleges, the workforce system, and employers to gain college credit, hiring preferences, and other benefits for the CSM Certificate, and with school and training providers to offer CSM. SeeMore Impact Labs works behind the scenes to coordinate activities of many partner organizations, "get the word out", and build sustained momentum for community-wide upskilling.
The Excel Together Initiative is exemplified by Excel Together West Virginia, which began in summer of 2022.
"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.”
Brittany had given up on herself, and the system had failed her. Now, her life is transformed.
These benefits are now available across the state.
Most communities have dozens to hundreds of programs addressing various education and workforce issues. These programs involve different curricula, instruction, credentials, and funding, operating in independent siloes, with little coordination, economies of scale, or effective knowledge transfer. But are the issues really as different as they appear?
Underlying all of the problems, we believe, are a common set of issues related to a lack of personal High Performance skills and the skills and mindsets of Lifelong Learning.
They develop personal resilience and allow an individual to bounce back from challenges.
They build personal aspirations and allow individuals to grasp for opportunities.
They help students graduate from high school, enter college and succeed -- they are the skills of postsecondary access and completion.
They allow employees to enter rigorous training programs, excel at work, and gain promotions -- they are the skills of workforce development and employee upskilling.
In scale, they can transform the economic prosperity of a community.
CSM uses next-generation adaptive learning technology to simultaneously personalize instruction in academic and how-you-learn, -act and -feel domains. This single course has a surprising range of applications:
The CSM Course does amazing remediation, but it isn't a "remedial course". It earns college math credit, and requires 100% correct answers on fill-in-the-blank questions -- that is, A-level work. While it is attainable by individuals from all backgrounds, it delivers world-class skills.
Because of this, the CSM Certificate is not a "them" certificate that "those people" get, but an "us" certificate with recognized value for everyone.
CSM addresses the underlying problems (the "elephant") across a range of community issues by building High Performance and Lifelong Learning skills in schools, colleges, adult education, workforce development and workplaces. And because of this unprecedented range of use, instead of many different uncoordinated programs, CSM enables a new cohesive approach to simultaneously addressing many problems across a community -- this is the Excel Together Initiative.
It's not enough that CSM provides inexpensive, scalable, effective training and certification of High Performance and Lifelong Learning skills -- most adults need concrete incentives to engage in any education or training activities, and education and training programs need a good reason to add CSM to their offerings.
Excel Together addresses this by building value in the CSM Certificate in a local community through:
Schools, adult education programs, and workforce development want their graduates to get into college and/or get good jobs (or more skills for better jobs, if you are employed). By gaining college credit and hiring preferences for the CSM Certificate, teaching CSM becomes one of the most direct ways for these organizations to meet their missions and accountability targets.
These same incentives will draw individuals in the community into those programs. And with more individuals earning CSM Certificates, this builds the value of the credential and the interests of training providers to offer the CSM Course, leading to upward spiraling use of CSM in the community.
Throughout the Excel Together initiative, SeeMore provides operational and marketing support to expand college credit and hiring incentives, to train and support local CSM coaches, to expand the range of training providers offering CSM, and to market the benefits of CSM to local individuals. All of this support is provided free through the Excel Together initiative.
While the value of postsecondary training is now universally recognized, 49% of adults don't believe that they have the skills to benefit from postsecondary education (Strada-Gallup, 2020). Contrasting this low self-efficacy is the huge up-front commitments of time, money, ego, and effort required to launch into postsecondary education or training.
Excel Together allows people to build their college success skills and self-confidence without having to take the effortful leap of college matriculation. People might take CSM at adult education to prepare for a high school equivalency test, or for upskilling while on unemployment benefits, only to discover that they've finished their college math requirement, the scariest part of their certificate or degree program!
And while they are taking CSM, every time they learn a skill, CSM will inform them that only (depending on the skill) 35% of 4-year college graduates and 15% of all adults in the US could do the skill they just learned (only about half of college grads can answer the median skill difficulty on CSM). For individuals who have struggled with math or school, this is life-changing information!
System change is hard -- systems exists because they have many natural mechanisms to resist change. Excel Together identifies small levers (college credit, hiring preferences) that can move organizational and personal behaviors, transform systems and people's lives.
Most community-wide programs start with getting everyone around a table to talk about how they can all work together -- this requires time and it can be hard to find consensus, with organizations worrying about intrusive coordination reducing their autonomy. Such efforts often come up with "lowest common denominator" solutions.
In contrast, Excel Together West Virginia began by working with the community colleges to articulate CSM for college math credit, and the resulting college credit then attracted the interest of the adult education distance coordinator and the head of TANF training, which then led to an introduction to the head of Workforce WV, etc. There was no meeting at which everyone was together to discuss a new, major initiative in the state.
As each organization made internal changes in their organization, Excel Together West Virginia had more to offer other organizations (free use, college credit, preferred credential), making it more useful and likely for other organizations to join.
CSM is so inexpensive that existing funding streams could be identified to cover the cost.
One of the most successful college access and completion strategies is dual/concurrent enrollment. This strategy, however, suffers from multiple deficiencies:
In contrast, CSM is a small fraction of the cost of college tuition + textbook, doesn't require specially-qualified teachers, includes remediation to 5th grade math, doesn't require college placement, and is not dual-transcripted (it comes to the college as voluntary transfer credit). Finally, CSM can be implemented outside of school environments, and is therefore available to non-traditional adults in a variety of venues for preparing for college.
Due to the constraints on dual credit, these classes are only applicable to top high school students. On the other hand, most high school students and adults who struggle with math can take and succeed at CSM.
Excel Together, by making CSM available widely in the community, greatly broadens the pathway into postsecondary education.
We're on the lookout for partners across the US. If you're interested in learning more about Excel Together and how it might apply in your community, please fill in the form below, or write us directly at hello@smilabs.org.
We look forward to hearing from you!
