SCHOOL OF EDUCATION

TEACHER EDUCATION, ELMAC PROGRAM

610 E. UNIVERSITY AVE., 1228 SEB
ANN ARBOR, MI 48109-1259

May 11, 2015

To Whom It May Concern:
With pleasure, I highly recommend Michele Zmich as a candidate for a teaching position. I have worked with
Michele for the past year in my position as her field instructor at the University of Michigan.
Michele has had experience working with a broad range of learners this year, in settings that are
academically and culturally diverse. At the beginning of her internship last June, she taught struggling first
and third grade students in an academic summer school program. During a math methods course during fall
semester, she taught struggling upper-elementary learners in an after-school tutoring program. Her yearlong
classroom placement has been in a fifth grade classroom working with students across the learning
continuum. There have been English Language Learners and students with special needs in each of these
settings.
Michele thinks through lessons thoroughly and demonstrates an understanding of all the subjects she
teaches. She considers Common Core State Standards and district objectives, making certain that her
learning goals, instructional sequence, and assessment are aligned to these targets. She shares the
learning goals for the lesson with students by making them accessible as I can statements. She
monitors students written work, their contributions to class or small group discussions, and the way students
manage themselves during various classroom activities.
Michele makes content explicit through
explanations, modeling, representations, and sharing examples. She moves from modeling what she wants
students to do with understanding to gradually releasing responsibility for the task to students.
Michele skillfully engages students in class discussions. She poses thoughtful questions to promote deeper
thinking and to elicit student explanations about a topic or idea, enabling her to evaluate student
understanding, to surface ideas that are shared with the class, and to develop students skills in explaining
their reasoning and listening to others.
Michele recognizes the effectiveness of incorporating technology and visual representations into her lessons
to capture students interest, keep them engaged and focused, and enhance their learning. She finds images
to provide background knowledge and supplemental information for historical fiction novels and biographies
that students are reading, for social studies lessons and for interactive read-alouds. For example, Michele
introduced a fantasy genre study by reading a number of books by the author Chris Van Allsburg. After
reading Jumanji to the class as an introduction to the genre study, and after having the class closely examine
the surrealistic illustrations in the book, Michele projected images of surrealistic works by Salvador Dali to
extend the discussion of works of fantasy.
Michele has informally assessed students understanding by listening to their conversations, by eliciting their
thinking during group discussions, and by looking at students written work. She has students complete exit
slips at the end of many lessons. She has administered end-of-unit tests and done running records and
benchmarking to determine students reading levels. With her grade level team of four mentor teachers and
four interns, she has examined students tested math scores and provided targeted guided math instruction
one day a week. She monitors student learning and interprets assessment data to inform her instruction.
Finally, she has become familiar with M-STEP as she has done practice activities with students to prepare
them for this new test.
Michele has an easy rapport with students. She encourages and acknowledges individual student interests
and accomplishments and responds thoughtfully to individual student needs. She has a cheerful and
respectful demeanor that easily fits into the class culture, and she reinforces school and classroom routines
that promote a fair and safe learning environment.
Michele has demonstrated strong collaboration skills. She was one of four interns placed with fifth grade
mentor teachers who do much planning together. They also departmentalize for teaching science and social

studies and group students by reading level for reading. In addition to working with the four mentor teachers,
the four interns also planned together, using Google Docs to co-plan creative and well-researched units and
lessons that each intern then modified to meet the needs of the particular students with whom they worked.
Michele clearly values opportunities to work with others to brainstorm, plan, and evaluate learning
experiences for students. This level of collaboration and reflection has positioned Michele for working as a
productive and highly valued member of a professional team.
Michele is exceptionally well qualified for a teaching position. She has demonstrated thoughtfulness,
confidence, creativity, initiative, a strong work ethic, a genuine devotion to children and their development,
and the skills of the seasoned teacher that she is. She has been an exemplary teaching intern. Please
contact me at msnyderm@umich.edu if you have any questions or need further information.
Sincerely,
Michele Madden, Field Instructor