The core of TOPS is a year-long mentoring experience starting with a week-long summer institute followed by three, week-long, on-site, coaching-mentoring sessions where the classroom teacher and the TOPS staff conduct laboratories with students at the school site. In subsequent years, the TOPS teacher selects up to five laboratories in their discipline and the program will deliver the instrumentation/equipment and specialized reagents to the school site.

The core of TOPS Foundations is the Lesson Study model, a process where teachers systematically examine their student’s learning experience and work collaboratively to plan, teach, observe, critique, and revise a series of Research Lessons focused on critical topics in their curriculum.