Meet Michael Kreft

Michael Kreft teaches eighth grade social studies (U.S. and South Carolina History) at Fort Johnson Middle School on James Island. He believes students should learn how social studies applies to the world beyond the classroom. Every lesson, every day, should be meaningful and relevant to students' lives. Pure memorization is obsolete. In a technologically advanced world, students must not only locate information, they must also learn how to use it. His students gather, organize, and report on data while developing technology skills.

Michael Kreft's Best Practice Strategy:
Students conduct web-based research, design web pages, and create PowerPoint presentations on real-world social studies applications.

Lesson Plan Overview:
Newspaper reporters must determine what events and issues are worthy or unworthy of reporting. In the same way, textbook authors must determine what facts are worthy of including in a textbook. In doing so, they also choose to eliminate certain information. What is the criteria for judging history in this way? How do our perspectives influence what we choose to study? These are the central questions students in Mike Kreft's class explore in their study of the American Revolution.

In this lesson, students create a timeline of twenty topics from the Revolution. They workcooperatively, using the Internet to research about sixty different topics. Upon completing their research, students debate and evaluate their topics to determine which twenty topics are worthy of being included on a timeline. When they reach a consensus, the group creates a timeline of important battles and events from the Revolution along with supporting reasons for their conclusions.

Lesson Plan
Grading Rubric
Web Resources
Sample Test