Thursday, August 2, 2012

Apprion Core Skills Mastery - Free Web-Based Course/Supplement

Apprion is introducing Core Skills Mastery (CSM), a free web-based course/supplement that builds math, literacy, and problem-solving skills while simultaneously addressing issues with learning strategies, persistence and confidence that are often at the heart of student academic difficulties. By addressing all of the key issues at once, and by emphasizing teaching students how to learn skills on their own, CSM learning is fast and deep, and produces skills, attitudes and habits that transfer to all of a student’s classes. CSM has broad applications in secondary schools, college transition, post-secondary CTE, workforce development, STEM-bridges and adult education.

The bullet-points below provide a very brief introduction. For more information, visit www.csmlearn.com, or contact David Goldberg at david@apprion.org / (303) 862-7233.

Core Skills Mastery (CSM)

CSM addresses academic skills deficits in many contexts

·    Secondary schools, colleges, CTE, workforce development (emerging, transitional, incumbent), adult education, corporate training
·    Develops vibrant, active, confident learners who can succeed at academics, make decisions and climb career ladders

CSM is a free course for skills that matter in school and the workplace

·      Instruction for all aspects of high-performance education and work:
o  Fills in gaps, provides immediate boost to adult math & literacy skills
o  Teaches advanced problem-solving and thinking skills to the college level
o  Enhances ability to learn independently
o  Builds self-motivation, persistence, confidence
·     Web-based assessment and instruction
o  Students are directed by computer to learn at their own pace
o  Approximately 15-60 hours for Core Instruction (math, literacy, problem-solving)
o  Up to 60 hours of optional Challenge Problems (advanced problem-solving and thinking skills)
·     CSM is highly scalable, with embedded, continuous instructor preparation and assistance
·    Curriculum scope:
o  Adapts to students of many levels, from as low as primary math and middle school literacy to adults with strong preparation who need brush-up and deepening of skills
o  Focuses on depth, intuition and fluency in math and literacy to pre-algebra levels, then climbs to college-level problem-solving and thinking skills
·    CSM is free for most non-profit applications (e.g. schools, colleges, CBO’s), and low-cost for others

CSM is a new form of training that addresses the “whole student”

·    Balances remediation and advanced material for each student
·    Tightly integrates literacy and math instruction
·    Monitors learning and attitude issues to drive highly-differentiated instruction aimed at increasing students’ persistence, carefulness, confidence, motivation, and learning strategies
·    Analyzes and responds to specific student thinking errors
·    Keeps students at their zone of proximal development where learning is fastest and most rewarding
·    Ensures durable mastery of learned skills
·    Builds learning meta-cognition by reporting to students and instructors on the success of individual student’s learning strategies (e.g. what they read and when they read it, carefulness, etc.)
·     Teaches problem-solving as a separate discipline
·     Builds critical thinking using a variety of workplace contexts

CSM embeds instructor assistance that encourages strategic intervention

·    Supports intervention based on a holistic view of students (thinking, learning, attitudes)
·    Provides individual student narratives that include: observations of the student, interpretations of student thinking, learning, affect/behavior, and suggested interventions
·    Emphasizes positive reinforcement (e.g. linking what a student did to the success it engendered)

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