At the core of this multifaceted model, teacher Design Teams focus on carefully selected Curriculum Challenges . Teachers build new skills and knowledge as they work to improve student learning. FreshPond.net online tools support the work of developing exemplary learning activities for classroom use. We truly believe that people learn best by doing. Design Teams create opportunities for teachers to collaborate on curriculum development.
Teachers learn new ideas and skills while doing work that has immediate use in their classrooms.
Throughout the Design Team experience, FreshPond provides guidance for administrators and teachers, and support through online tools and resources at FreshPond.net . Focusing on specific Curriculum Challenges helps to define critical tasks for the Design Teams . For example, it can be difficult to teach elementary math students how to use estimation as a problem-solving strategy, though it is a core skill in mathematics. Similarly, it is an ongoing challenge to teach secondary humanities students to support a written argument with specific evidence, and yet this is essential for effective expository writing. Topics such as genetics in biology or the Reconstruction period in U.S. history also present teaching challenges that might become the focus of a Design Team s work.