The National Assessment of Educational Progress shows that many US students are deficient in core knowledge in geography, civics and current events. In this paper, a professor of social studies methods describes an action research project developed to assess and improve teacher candidates' knowledge in these areas. The article explains how data were collected, analyzed and interpreted to yield three concrete, easy to implement teaching strategies that substantially improved students' knowledge in geography, civics and current events. These strategies can be used in other subject areas as well. The research method and the resulting three strategies are described in detail.