The Research-Ready Classroom: Differentiating Instruction Across Content Areas

When your classroom hums with the activity of twenty-five students, each diligently pursuing their own line of inquiry, real learning happens. Independent research increases student motivation and is one of the most effective ways for them to learn across the content areas, but many teachers don't know how to implement and manage it. "The Research-Ready Classroom" shows you how to differentiate instruction for two dozen students at once-all while helping them meet curricular demands and state standards.

In "The Research-Ready Classroom" Mike Anderson and Andy Dousis give you a start-to-finish guide to managing independent research in your classroom. From an examination of the skills independent research builds to using inquiry to motivate students, you'll find all the theoretical information you need to understand why independent research works and what it accomplishes. And from helping students select a topic to supporting them as they gather information and create ways to present it, Anderson and Dousis give you all the specific instructional strategies to make it work. Best of all, they show you how research projects support students of all abilities in meeting benchmarks across the curriculum.

Pick up a copy of "The Research-Ready Classroom" and discover how you can teach valuable skills like questioning and note taking, meet standards, and improve students' motivation, all at once. Then listen for the buzz of busy researchers enjoying the quest for information.

A fifth grade teacher in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Mike Anderson has taught for thirteen years. He is also a consultant for the Northeast Foundation for Children and has taught at the Summer Literacy Institutes at the University of New Hampshire. He was awarded a national Milken Educator Award for excellence in teaching in 2004 and was a finalist for New Hampshire Teacher of the Year in 2005. Mike lives in Durham, New Hampshire, with his wife, Heather, and their two children, Ethan and Carly.Andy Dousis, is a Senior Consulting Teacher for the Northeast Foundation for Children, where he trains teachers and supports schools implementing the Responsive Classroom approach to teaching. He taught third and fourth grades at Flanders School in East Lyme, Connecticut, for ten years. He is also a state champion high school football coach and a former Marine. He lives in East Lyme with his wife, Debbie, and their two daughters, Shawn and Hunter.