Ask any teacher who has tried to integrate inquiry-based learning activities that support their course of study and textbook: "What are your greatest obstacles?" And even using great resources like SKS, they'll tell you that there is a challenge in each step of the process:

• Creating ideas for activities that appeal to students and integrate the curriculum and standards.
  
  
• Managing the activity to ensure that students get relevant and credible results.
  
  
• Helping students to organize, analyze, and synthesize the information--critical thinking.
  
  
• Helping the students to convert their ideas into reports and presentations.
  
  
• Evaluating the process and the report and presentation.

It's no revelation then, that teaching is much easier when its major strategy is based on lecture-discussion and multiple choice testing for a grade. But is learning easier and more effective? Scientific research indicates that this is the least effective way of teaching and learning. The same research indicates that inquiry-based learning is one of the most effective ways IF it's done correctly.

SIRS Researcher with integrated Leading Issues coverage provides the world class learning resources for teachers and students to use that motivate learning beyond the textbook and lecture-discussion. But SIRS does more than this because it provides the support that teachers need to make the transition to implementing effective inquiry-based learning.

As you and your students begin the school year with the benefits of access to SIRS SKS Researcher with Leading Issues both at home and school, here is some interesting information that will help you to make each inquiry-based assignment more effective with SIRS support. Each provides ways in which SIRS addresses the five teacher obstacles listed above.

Logon to SIRS before you continue this activity and experience the teacher support resources:

• SIRS Leading Issues (handout) provides more than 100 issues that students care about and that correlate to standards, curriculum, and textbooks; Researcher provides an activity archive
  
  
  
• SIRS Researcher with Leading Issues provides only editor-selected articles and websites with summaries and Lexile scores to aid student selection
  
  
  
• Our Leading Issues five-step process (list on left margin) ensures that both teachers and students are guided through the critical thinking process
  
  
  
• Leading Issues provides four unique models for a variety of report and presentations: Formal Research Paper, Mini-Research Report, PowerPoint Presentation, and Mini-Debate
  
  
  
• Flexible rubrics model helps teachers evaluate the process and the product

So, it's easy to see that SIRS is more than a great student learning resource, because it provides support for the most important person in inquiry-based learning--the teacher.