How a Typical UnLock Math Lesson Works
Our 6-step daily learning cycle ensures students don't just "do" math—they master it.
- The Warm Up - Daily Retrieval Practice: Activate the mathematical brain with 5 interactive questions pulled directly from previous lessons. This targeted review ensures students have retained foundational concepts while serving as a 'cognitive wake-up' to prepare them for new instruction. It’s the first step in our Mastery-Spiral approach, ensuring yesterday’s success becomes today’s foundation.
- Video Instruction - Expert-Led Multi-Sensory Teaching: Experience high-energy, on-camera instruction from certified teacher Alesia Blackwood. Unlike dry voice-overs or static animations, Alesia uses the exact notes she authored to explain the 'why' behind every concept. These bite-sized lessons use multi-sensory visual cues and real-world examples to engage auditory and visual learners, making complex math feel like a 1-on-1 tutoring session.
- Interactive Practice - The Mastery Engine: Mastery begins with active engagement. Students tackle 10 interactive questions of increasing difficulty, one-problem-at-a-time with instant feedback and step-by-step solutions. designed to bridge the gap between watching and doing. Our platform utilizes natural math notation and an advanced equation editor, allowing students to enter complex math exactly as it appears in textbooks. With integrated interactive graphing for relevant concepts, students gain a hands-on, visual understanding of mathematical relationships. Need more practice? Our Infinite Practice™ feature allows students to open an unlimited number of new practice sets for any lesson. Each set contains entirely new questions covering the same concepts, ensuring students can practice until they achieve total confidence without ever seeing the same problem twice.
- Stay Sharp - Intelligent Spiral Retention: Stop the 'forgetting curve' before it starts. Our Stay Sharp sessions feature 10 spiral review questions carefully curated from the 10 preceding lessons. This strategic retrieval practice ensures that previously mastered concepts move into long-term memory. Stuck on a review problem? Each question includes a direct link back to the original lesson, allowing students to instantly refresh their memory with Alesia’s video instruction or Reference Notes. Like our practice sets, Stay Sharp offers unlimited attempts with all-new questions, ensuring students can stay sharp until every concept is locked into long term memory.
- Challenge Yourself - Risk-Free Advanced Problem Solving: Push beyond the basics with higher-order thinking problems designed to stretch the mathematical brain. We challenge advanced learners to apply concepts in complex, non-standard ways, building the deep critical reasoning skills required for STEM success. These 'extra-mile' problems mirror the logic of competitive exams like the SAT and ACT, and because they are for bonus points only, students can develop honors-level confidence without the stress of impacting their grade.
- Printable Reference Notes - The "Offline" Master File: Take the learning off-screen with comprehensive, printable PDF notes for every lesson. These aren't just summaries; they are the exact instructional notes Alesia teaches from, featuring the same examples, step-by-step breakdowns, and key glossary terms seen in the video. They serve as a permanent, student-created math handbook for quick review and long-term retention.
5 Learning Strategies Used by Unlock Math Based on the Science of Learning
Viewing Teacher
For students, viewing a teacher's face helps to create a sense of connection and engagement with the material being taught.
In addition, research has shown that when students view a teacher's face while receiving instruction, they are more likely to pay attention and retain the information being taught.
In addition, research has shown that when students view a teacher's face while receiving instruction, they are more likely to pay attention and retain the information being taught.
Retrieval Practice
Retrieval practice strengthens the connections in the brain that store and retrieve information, which leads to improved retention and a deeper understanding of the material. Retrieval practice can be particularly effective when it is spaced out over time, rather than being done all at once. This is because spacing out retrieval practice helps to consolidate the information in long-term memory, making it more likely to be retained over the long term.
Spaced Practice
Spaced practice involves reviewing material on a regular basis, rather than trying to cram all the information into a single study session. Spaced practice has been shown to be more effective than massed practice, which is when all the study or practice is done in a single block of time. This is because spaced practice allows the brain more time to process and consolidate the material, making it more likely to be retained in long-term memory.
Interleaving
Interleaving – involves mixing up the material being studied or practiced, rather than focusing on one topic at a time. Interleaving is an effective way to improve learning and problem-solving skills because it forces the brain to actively process and integrate new information, rather than simply rehearsing the same material over and over. Interleaving is particularly effective when combined with retrieval practice & spaced practice.
Feedback
There are several key principles of effective feedback in the science of learning:
1. Specific and focused.
2. Timely.
3. Objective, based on clear criteria.
4. Actionable, providing students with specific steps they can take to improve.
5. Positive and constructive.
Overall, the use of feedback can be an important part of the learning process, helping students to understand their progress, identify areas for improvement, and make progress towards their learning goals.
1. Specific and focused.
2. Timely.
3. Objective, based on clear criteria.
4. Actionable, providing students with specific steps they can take to improve.
5. Positive and constructive.
Overall, the use of feedback can be an important part of the learning process, helping students to understand their progress, identify areas for improvement, and make progress towards their learning goals.
You Want the Best Online Homeschool Math Curriculum for Your Children
Unlock Math online math courses have been carefully developed to reduce math anxiety while building confidence & skill in math. Give your child their best opportunity for math success. We help students quickly catch up in math and fill in gaps in their knowledge, accelerating their success!
If you are looking for the best homeschool math curriculum, experience the dramatic difference that Unlock Math makes in homeschool families around the world!
It begins with an amazing math teacher.
- Alesia Blackwood has an exceptional ability to explain math clearly, so your child will find concepts easier to understand and apply. Studies have shown that students learn & retain information better if they SEE the teacher working through examples vs. voice-over type lessons.
- Alesia explains the "why" of math so that students make the connections that relate what they are learning to the real world.
And continues with an easily navigated platform built to increase learning & retention.
- Multi-sensory lessons for Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic, and Verbal learners. Students continue learning during exercises that encourage them to learn by doing. We believe that learning should continue beyond video instruction.
- We don't sacrifice rigor to make the courses easier for students; we make lessons easier by providing clearer instruction & exercises that reinforce learning and foster increased retention of concepts.
- We don't rely on multiple-choice questions. Instead, we use a number of different question types that allow us to assess student knowledge in a way that most online math programs can't.
- Interactive questions provide virtual math manipulatives that deepen students' conceptual understanding of math.
- We include unlimited practice for your child to master concepts.
- Our math courses have a continual review to keep new skills fresh, locking concepts into long-term memory.
- Each review question, including questions on quizzes & tests, has a link to where the concept was taught.
- Students receive immediate feedback, so they aren't left guessing about progress until the end of an assignment.
- We include detailed step-by-step solutions after each question. This is invaluable in helping your child discover where they "went wrong" in questions they answered incorrectly.
- Automated grading means one less thing for you.
Gives you and your student the tools & guides needed for math success.
- Extensive parent tools, pacing guides, and at-a-glance & deep-dive reports.
- Printable math textbook included with each course.
- Numerous help guides on Parent & Student dashboards.
- Live math help with expert instructors is a safety net for your child so that nothing is left to chance.
- 30-day no-risk money-back guarantee.
How It Works
Allow us to walk you briefly through our program so that you can see for yourself why we've been rated the #1 online math curriculum by the readers of "Practical Homeschooling" magazine for seven years!
1
WARM UP
Each day your child will begin with a brief Warm Up, covering material from the day before. This does two things. First, it’s a quick check of their retention level. Second, it helps their brain switch gears from their previous subject, preparing them to learn.
2
LEARN
Then it’s time for the engaging video taught by Alesia Blackwood! She utilizes her unique style of breaking math concepts into bite-size chunks that are easier to understand & apply! Studies have shown that students learn & remember better if they SEE the teacher work through a problem vs. voice-over type lessons.
3
PRACTICE
Next, a set of Practice Problem questions covering JUST what they learned in the video. After each question, they view a complete solution to compare their work to ours in case they missed a step, etc. If, after going through these questions, they are ready to move ahead, GREAT. If not, they may open a NEW set of Practice Problems, and we’ll record their best effort for their grade. They can do this as many times as needed, and we’ll give them NEW questions each time! This allows students to master the concept entirely.
4
REVIEW
After Practice Problems, they move on to a Stay-Sharp set of questions that cover material from previous lessons so that concepts they’ve learned are touched on throughout the year. This keeps new skills fresh, locking them into long-term memory.
5
CHALLENGE
We include a Challenge Yourself question that is a student favourite! It’s a chance to earn “extra credit” and stretch their math skills for bonus points. Great for teaching them “outside the box” thinking when it comes to math.
6
REFERENCE
Each lesson also comes with Reference Notes that may be printed or viewed online. You may also print out all the Reference Notes at the beginning of the course for your very own Unlock Math textbook. These Reference Notes are the very ones Alesia uses when teaching the lesson.
7
QUIZ, REVIEW, & TEST
Every two or three days students complete a 5 question Quiz after the daily lesson. Units conclude with a Unit Review and a Unit Test and we also give students a Mid-term and a Final Review and Test.
8
AUTO GRADING & DETAILED REPORTING
You have access to Grades and more from your convenient Parent Dashboard. You may view each attempted assignment, when it was completed, how long was spent on it, and each score. You’ll also receive a weekly email of your child’s progress.
9
ONLINE CHAT WITH TEACHERS
A safety net for your child! Alesia and her team are ready to provide extra help. When it comes to your child’s math education, NOTHING is left to chance!
Note: Not available for California Charter School students.
Note: Not available for California Charter School students.
10
PARENT TOOLS
On your Parent Dashboard, you have access to a number of tools. Set a grade threshold, modify grades, modify subscriptions, switch students between courses, and more.
Take a look at the scope & sequence of our seven online math courses: Foundations, Pre-Algebra, Algebra I, Algebra II, Geometry, Pre-Calculus, and Financial Literacy. Compare us to the other curricula you are considering, and have your student try all that offer a free trial. Ours is 14 days and does not require a credit card! We’re confident you’ll choose Unlock Math!
We are so confident that you will experience the benefit and value of investing in your child’s math success with Unlock Math that we offer a 30-day money-back guarantee. Combined with the free trial, this gives you 44 days to try Unlock Math completely risk-free. We know that you, like us, are tired of investing in curricula only to switch when it’s not working and essentially lose those $$$’s.
We look forward to unlocking your child’s math potential!
