| |

LABWay Math Review

LABWay Math Review – Our Story

What do you do when the homeschool road is feeling a bit more arduous than usual? When it’s not quite broken but also not working as well as you know it could be? 

You know, those times when an overhaul feels like too much but a day off isn’t quite enough. How do you shake things up a little while staying the course? 

I was in just such a place with my 10-year-old about six months ago. It was the dead of winter, and an effort to keep myself engaged, much less my little guy. (And you need to be engaged to do math.)

Side note, this is our first “normal” year after a series of big changes, not the least of which was moving across the country. The school year was feeling particularly long for both of us and neither of us were thriving; my son’s progress was slowing and so were my creative ideas. 

Both of us were just going through the motions. Despite field trips, special projects, and extracurriculars, I couldn’t revive our homeschool days. We needed a boost, so I was excited when we had the opportunity to try a new coaching program from LABWay Math, and I am sharing our LABWAY Math review here.

LABWay Math: A Unique Approach

Based on several years of success overseas, having helped over 10,000 students in southeast Asia, LABWay has just begun to offer its unique math coaching approach to learners in the United States. 

A blend of philosophies that borrows from the Socratic method and Singapore Math, LABWay Math has developed a unique approach to math coaching called “Logic b4 Procedure.” This approach is built on the premise that kids need to understand the “why” of math before they can gain mastery over the steps and process of math

LABWay coaches aim to increase mathematical thinking. They don’t intend to replace any curriculum; rather, their coaching sessions are meant to come alongside students in a complementary way. 

LABWay Coaching vs Tutoring

Rather than a more standard sit-and-get method of tutoring where a student receives individualized instruction on a particular topic, LABWay coaching is discussion-based. The folks at LABWay have discovered that kids truly build and demonstrate an understanding of the “why” behind the math when they talk it through with a coach among a small group of peers

Because we’re in a fairly unique timezone (Alaska), there weren’t any other kids around my son’s age ready for a small group, so my son worked one-on-one with his coach, Chester, on the foundational principles of fractions. We continued our daily practice with the curriculum we’d been using, and twice a week, he had his math meeting with Chester. 

They explored fractions via conversations about Legos, dogs, pizza, and mandarin oranges. Making this connection with things my son already loves helped him engage with Chester, and bit by bit, he was able to explain and then own the processes around adding and subtracting fractions. I saw my son rely less on simply remembering steps or rules and actually engaging more with the ideas around fractions. 

These meetings were just the thing my son needed to beat the doldrums of math that we’d settled into! He even said, “They don’t seem like math meetings because we’re not just talking about rules and steps and solving problems; we just talk about how fractions work.” 

I’ll take it! He truly enjoyed his meetings with Chester and then sharing about those LABWay Math meetings with the family over dinner. I was more than thrilled to see my son’s progress move each week toward mastery of a concept. 

Not Just Another Online Meeting

Working with a coach and a small group in a virtual setting also builds critical discourse skills in a world where remote learning and digital interaction are becoming more and more common. 

My kids, like many, aren’t particularly engaged by online classes where a teacher simply delivers a lesson. I can’t say that I blame them, I had to take several graduate courses throughout the pandemic and remember well the struggle to engage with “sit-and-get” classes. 

However, LABWay’s method of working with a community of practice–a mutual exchange of information and questions in a shared pursuit of deeper understanding–is an outstanding way to explore a frustration-prone topic like math. This approach honors the idea that each participant has something to share as much as they have to learn

My son loved that the LABWay Math sessions weren’t “just a teacher on the screen” (his words), but rather someone who knew him and engaged his interests from week to week. 

“Let us examine the question together, my friend, and if you can contradict anything I say, do so and I will be persuaded.” – Socrates

To me, this academic discourse was every bit as beneficial as the gains my son made specifically in his math skills. I’ve since observed my son having much more confidence in engaging other adults in conversations

Additionally, this was a helpful opportunity for me to simply watch and learn.

As these conversations unfolded, I found a renewed creativity for my own math lessons with my son, which even spilled over into our other subjects. I began to ask more questions when homeschooling my son: 

  • What do you mean by that? 
  • How do you know? 
  • Can you tell me more? 

I found that such questioning allowed my son to guide our conversations and demonstrate his understanding and mastery of a topic. Just peppering a few new questions into our conversations was an infusion I needed as a homeschool teacher and mother

Ripple Effects of LABWay Math

While I initially thought LABWay Math would simply offer us a little break from the monotony (which it did), I found it did far more than that. My son saw the marked gains in his understanding of fractions as well as in his ability, confidence, and even his enthusiasm to engage in a conversation about something that’s still relatively new. 

We both found renewal by adding LABWay conversations to my son’s math lessons; this new energy rippled out from math into language arts and geography as we both practiced the art of discourse. My son’s increased confidence in academic conversations also rippled out to his interactions with other adults. 

If you find your homeschool days are dragging and your well is running a little dry as a mom, consider adding a new approach to learning! LABWay Math might be just the thing for you. 

Through July and August, LABWAY Math is offering an amazing promotion. Start math coaching today for just $49 a month, and help your child understand the WHY, not just the how of math. Solve the math struggles for good!

Similar Posts

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *