April 30, 2013 Dear administrator: It is my pleasure to submit this letter of reference for Shannon Boshart, a Drake masters

degree candidate who has been my student teacher at Southeast Polk High School from January 28 until May 10, 2013. Throughout her experience, she has demonstrated quality teaching skills and great connections with students. Probably highest on the list of Shannons strengths is her sense of collegiality and collaboration. She engages enthusiastically in our professional development activities which are currently focused on aligning our departmental offerings to the Common Core. Because she is still in the university setting, she brings a fresh set of eyes to this process and her suggestions are very astute. Her collaboration skills are also evident as she has worked not only with me, but with two other teachers. She has done an outstanding job of giving equal time to all three of us and our courses and, no doubt, got an interesting perspective on the teaching profession since I am in year 30+, another teacher is just past her fifth year, and the third teacher is just in year two of her teaching career. The questions she posed to all three of us truly made us reflect on our own strategies and philosophies as she clarified her own. In terms of classroom management and teaching strategies, I find that Shannons methods are progressive and engaging. She works hard to create classroom experiences that grab her students and keep them focused on their learning and out of trouble. They respond well to her style and personal demeanor in the classroom. She is easy-going but professional, and her rapport keeps the students interested and on task. I find this to be quite sophisticated given her relative inexperience. She communicates her expectations clearly and directly with each classroom full of children and works well with large groups, smaller groups, and individual students. She has taken on the daunting task of trying to student teach both in journalism and in English so that she can better prepare for a career that will involve both regular English classroom instruction and publications advising. She has experienced the many challenging tasks associated with working with students in the newspaper and yearbook environment. I think each day provided her with an opportunity to learn the depth of these tasks and to realize that courses that involve the production of a public product are very different from any standard academic offering. She pitched in and learned how these processes work and asked important questions along the way. She knows that she will not be entirely prepared to take over publications advising with total confidence in her first job, but this experience is preparing her far better than many young teachers are before they are given such an assignment. Shes smart, and I believe if she were offered such a challenge, she would break it down and get the job done; shes that kind of worker. I believe her biggest challenge in student teaching was fairly common: knowing how to teach kids specific skills that she herself has already mastered. Together, we worked each week to hone her preparation and planning processes, trying to focus on knowing when kids get it and when they dont, and what to do next if they didnt get it on the first (or second, or third) attempt. She has been taught many of these skills, and is beginning to develop the routine of how to balance thinking about what her students need to know and be able to do, how to properly plan well-structured daily lessons that fit into both unit and weekly calendars, and how to accurately assess student achievement, all the while providing feedback to students, parents, and the administration. Its been great to see her recognize that such concerns are the major part of what teachers work is all about and that there are no real short-cuts to getting the job done. As each week progressed, she saw that all the work she did at this stage of her career is putting her that much more ahead of the game down the road. I highly recommend Shannon. Feel free to contact me at any time for more specific details. My cell phone number is 515-577-2253. I look forward to answering any questions you might have about this fine young educator. Carole Henning
________________________________________________________________________________________www.se-polk.k12.ia.us
Principal Charles W. Bredlow Associate Principal Joseph M. Horton Assistant Principal Stephen A. Pettit Assistant Principal John J. Steffen 7945 NE University Ave. Pleasant Hill, IA 50327 Phone: 515-967-6631 Fax: 515-967-5117