In addition to team work, critical thinking and problem solving, all our students learn values such as integrity, ethical decision making, kindness, and resilience.
We believe in nurturing students' playful spirits while instilling a sense of responsibility, essential for shaping well-rounded individuals who thrive in the modern world.
We help our students build an intellectual toolbox of disciplined choice making abilities through the use of custom built challenges that give students first hand experience of tackling problems where the answers are unknown.
The progression consists of three worlds and the students can choose to stay with the same group throughout or they can switch between different groups depending on what best suits them.
The first world consists of a series of challenges that focus on developing individual communication skills as well as skills needed to contribute to a team (for example, conflict resolution, empowering others, managing impulsivity, asking high leverage questions).
The second world is focused on exploring teams as a whole. This consists of understanding and experimenting with different leadership styles and team frameworks as well as learning how to sustain team culture.
The third world is focused on teaching students how to engineer design processes and they'll get the chance to design their own challenges through embracing creativity and innovation.
Our EQUIPed approach for each session ensures that students engage in open ended challenges that encourage the use of prior knowledge to connect content with thoughtful application. The students will be given the space to question each approach, work with others to best understand how they can best contribute to the challenge and iterate their strategies based on the results of previous plans.
Our facilitators encourage students to take control of their own learning and make their own decisions in a group environment.
Our online sessions are:
Our emphasis lies in cultivating problem-solving skills and teamwork. We help your child build out the intellectual toolbox needed for self-guided discovery.
Our facilitators come from a variety of backgrounds: some are traditional public school teachers, some are experienced curriculum designers, some are executive coaches and mentors!
We've purposefully selected a diverse range of facilitators because we strongly believe in the power of diversity of thought and we want to pass on this range of knowledge and expertise to our students.
Each week, our facilitators provide feedback on what the session was about, what challenges the students focused on and what skills they worked on.
Every student receives monthly personalized individual feedback from the facilitator, which will include how the student improved and what they can continue to work on.
In our experience, when students first join a session, they will look to their parents for immediate support and help when they encounter a problem.
Whilst it's fine for you to support your child with e.g. a technical issue, we'd suggest leaving it to your child to figure it out alongside our Technical Support Team - it's part of the learning experience and we know that students find this to be a really rewarding process when they solve the problem!
One of our goals is to help our students prepare for the real world and we think the best way of learning a skill is through experiencing it in a safe environment.
In addition to ensuring psychologically safe classrooms, our facilitators are all experienced in working with and supporting neurodivergent students. We know that neurodivergent students need social support as much as academic support to be happy and do well at CoLab and we set up our Gather worlds to enable this.
We also partner with parents to understand how we can accommodate accordingly to the student's needs.
Most schools are pretty good at developing a student's individual achievement, but individual achievement is not all that's needed to succeed in the modern world.
Increasingly, the world runs on small groups of highly effective individuals. Schools don't teach your children how to work in a team, break down a problem into solvable parts or how to make an honorable, ethical decision. CoLab was founded to fill that educational gap.
We let other programs teach your children math, or english, or robotics. At CoLab, we make sure that your child brings that math knowledge at the appropriate time, apply it responsibly, and work with others to build something together.
Our mission is to nurture children's curiosity, foster collaboration, and cultivate their problem-solving abilities. We're creating a community where kids can develop into compassionate and productive global citizens.
CoLab was founded by a team of parents, educators and engineers who wanted more from the modern education system. You can find out more about us here.
We group children based on their age and their availability. However if your child is more mature for their age, we will adjust the grouping accordingly - please just let us know during the registration process.
Yes we do! Please reach out to hello@collaborationlaboratory.com and our team will help you set up a Free Trial.
Yes - please let us know during the enrollment process and we'll do our best to accommodate the preferred time slots.
CoLab session times are scheduled based on Pacific Time in the United States. This means that when Daylight Saving Time (DST) begins or ends in the U.S., it may affect the session timing for students located outside the United States. If the time changes will affect your child, please reach out to hello@collaborationlaboratory.com and our team will assist you.
To ensure that we can maintain the highest standards, we're intentionally growing slowly. This allows us to iterate and adjust our curriculum and platform as we grow.
However, if there's a day and time that you and your child would like us to explore, please let us know at hello@collaborationlaboratory.com and we'll do our best to make it happen!
Our monthly subscription is $160 USD per month per student. Siblings receive a 25% discount.
Have a friend that will enjoy CoLab? Reach out at hello@collaborationlaboratory.com and we will give them a free trial!
Earn $40 towards your CoLab subscription for each referral that enrolls.
Your referral will also receive a $40 credit when they enroll.
There is no limit to the number of students you can refer.
Have your friend mention your name when they fill out the interest form or write us an email.
Once they enroll, we'll add a credit to both your accounts.
As a web-based service, CoLab will work on most computers and operating systems using Google Chrome, Firefox, and Safari, provided that you have an internet connection with at least 10mb/s download speed.
If you'd like to test this out/troubleshoot with us, please feel free to book in some time with us here.
To enjoy the best CoLab experience, we suggest you join via your computer. Many of our features are limited on tablets.
Look for, and accept, the recurring calendar invite in your inbox. This contains the time and link for the session
Bookmark the session link to make logging in every week easier
Prepare a quiet place for the session and ensure that the internet signal is good. We also suggest using a headset to help minimise background noise
Read this step-by-step guide to set up on Gather correctly
If you'd like help joining, email us at hello@collaborationlaboratory.com and we'll set up a Google Meet with you.
Have fun!
Any student who wants to take control of their education journey is welcome at CoLab.
Like our students, our facilitators are global citizens (Germany, Hong Kong, the UK and the US, to name a few).
While CoLab has special appeal to homeschooled students, any student who wants to take control of their education journey is welcome at CoLab.
This is an excellent idea! Once we have sufficient scale, we'll be looking to run our sessions in other languages (our Founders do, after all, speak German, Spanish, Cantonese and Mandarin!).
However, at the moment we can only offer sessions in English.
Being able to see someone is fundamental to collaboration and we ask that every student who joins CoLab keeps their camera on during the session. This also helps our Facilitators ensure everyone's safety.
If your child needs to keep their camera off, please do let us know and we'll accommodate accordingly.
Privacy is very important to us and we explain in detail here how we ensure everyone's privacy. All of our systems are SOC2/ISO27001 accredited and all our facilitators are trained in best practice.
In addition to the processes in our Privacy Policy and COPPA Policy, we have set up Gather so that students are only able to join CoLab sessions at the designated times of their session. All sessions are moderated by CoLab facilitators, ensuring a safe, civil and collaborative environment.
We record sessions to ensure quality control, to improve CoLab, for marketing purposes (provided you have provided us with consent to do so) and to ensure compliance with our Terms of Service, including responding to any alleged Prohibited Behavior.
If you'd like to opt out of marketing, please let us know via the Parent Consent Form or by emailing us at hello@collaborationlaboratory.com.
If you miss a session, the facilitator will send you a short email explaining what was covered in the session.
Whilst we can't currently offer make-up sessions, you can join the next session 15 minutes early so that the facilitator can bring your child up to date.
CoLab sessions do not run on major holidays based on the United States calendar, including Christmas and New Year's Day, Easter, Thanksgiving, and the 4th of July.
However, we also recognize that some holidays, like Thanksgiving, are unique to the United States and to better accommodate our global student community, CoLab will offer special sessions in a different format for some holidays. These special sessions will focus on social activities and provide opportunities for the students to practice their toolbox of new-found skills in an unfamiliar environment.
Whilst we can't currently offer make-up sessions, we can let you join the next session 15 minutes early so that the facilitator can bring your child up to date.
Absolutely. If your availability or circumstances change for any reason and you would like to change your cohort, our team will assist you in finding another time that works for you and your child.
We're sorry to hear this! We'd love a second chance, but if your mind is set, please write to us at hello@collaborationlaboratory.com and we'll do the rest.
To help us improve, please include any and all feedback in the cancellation email; alternatively, book in time with our team here.