A specialist in arts and technology integration, teacher Kathleen E. Kessel immerses her sixth-grade students in a multidisciplinary, project-based curriculum at Lincoln Elementary School in Dickinson. For a unit on Egypt, her students build scale models of ancient pyramids, write paragraphs in hieroglyphics and perform a play for parents and younger students. Mrs. Kessel teaches her students real-world financial skills by engaging them in a mini-society, providing them with "paychecks" for performing classroom duties which they can deposit into "bank accounts." A member of the district technology committee, she trains other teachers on the effective use of computers and multimedia for instruction. She also played a key role in helping the school earn a $20,000 technology integration grant. Mrs. Kessel has served as president of the Badlands Reading Council and co-chaired the 2001 North Dakota Reading Association Conference.
1994 Dickinson State University, B.S.
