January 26, 2012 To Whom It May Concern: This letter serves as a contextual reference for Mr. Ross Burdette.

Mr. Burdette is completing the Post-Bachelor Teacher Certification Program at Michigan State University and is fully ready to enter the teaching profession. I will share some information about my relationship with Ross that I wish to use to help explain why Ross is one of the most exemplary teacher candidates from Michigan State University who will soon be entering the job market. I have known Ross from the time he began his senior-year two-semester methods course sequence that I helped instruct in the 2010-2011 academic year. As a co-instructor of the course, I worked with Ross to develop curriculum materials, improve instructional strategies, and practice pedagogical skills in microteaching exercises and supervised classroom settings. He demonstrated a heightened interest in wanting to grow as a teacher and constantly sought ways to learn more, read more, and do more with his teaching. Whereas many teacher education students just want to pass the class, earn a 4.0, and move through student teaching, Ross was not interested in merely settling for an average experiencehe wanted more out of the program and he has since progressed through the teacher education program with a distinguished array of accomplishments. First, his field placement experience teaching U.S. history at Portland High School allowed him to experiment with different instructional strategies while crafting curriculum both individually and in concert with established educators. Feedback from his mentor teacher was consistently positive. Often, Ross brought issues of his placement to bear upon topics we were analyzing in class sessions. Such insight illustrates his ability to think cogently on problems in his own practice and in the larger scope of teaching, a type of insight that is necessary to be a cooperating and contributing member of any schools faculty and academic department. Ross used his clinical field experiences to constantly think through what were his strengths and weaknesses as a new teacher. Ross listens well, thinks carefully, and speaks with conviction and a pleasant orientation towards improvement and optimism. Such dispositions are rare among todays current set of novice teachers, who allow pessimism, a bleak economy, and a generational impasse in understanding the aims of education to blind them when seeing the collective vision of teaching our schools need and our administrators expect to count on in newly hired teachers. Secondly, Ross has demonstrated adept teaching practices in his yearlong student teaching internship at Owosso High School teaching World History and interacting with the social studies department at OHS. During his internship, he has learned how to implement many pedagogical moves not just in making learning history relevant, but also in working with adolescent learners. He knows the ropes of classroom management and is able to build constructive rapport with students without falling into the traps of casual friendliness and unclear boundaries that so many other novice
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College of Education
Department of Teacher Education
Michigan State University Erickson Hall East Lansing, MI 48824-1034 517-353-5091 Fax: 517-432-5092 education.msu.edu/te

teachers make whilst teaching in their twenties. This was made evident to me during the spring semester of 2011 when Ross worked with three other preservice teachers on a project at Okemos High School called Voices of Okemos. Charged with the task to help address issues of diversity, inclusion, and student leadership both from the College of Education and the Guidance Department at Okemos High School, Ross and his colleagues worked throughout the spring semester in the afternoons after school with a group of high school students to plan peer leadership and diversity awareness campaigns in their building and community. As a co-faculty sponsor for the project, I supervised Rosss work both at Okemos High School and at Michigan State University. He placed great effort into the project and was a positive role model for the high school students under his guidance. Thirdly, Ross excels at making connections with his students in constructive ways outside of the regular school day. As is evidenced in his resume, Rosss extensive work with mentoring young musicians in extra-curricular music programs exhibits his commitment to seeing young people tap into stores of talent they might not otherwise have the ability to express. With a daunting surplus of qualified teachers certified in social studies, it is often necessary to choose a candidate who can multitask and provide more bang for the (lessening) buck allocated for the position. Ross is an ideal fit because he can teach a variety of subjects with his interdisciplinary background in the social sciences and English, as well as his ability to coach and lead several groups. Having graduated with honors, and already embarking upon graduate work towards his professional education, Ross can model for his future students the importance of doing well in school and pursuing higher education in their own lives. Coupled with Rosss indefatigable kindness and good-natured affability, his personality and background equip him to be an energetic and popular young educator in your school. I do hope you will consider extending the opportunity for him to show you himself. Very kind regards, Mark Helmsing University Distinguished Fellow Department of Teacher Education