To: Whom It May Concern

Letter of Recommendation

Date: April 27, 2011

I first met Angela when she was a graduate student in my ED "Research in Teaching Science and Teaching Childhood Education" course at Mount Saint Mary College during spring of 2011.

In our class, the students were required to do a lot of activities, exercises aligned with the ten INTASC and AECI Principles.

Angela always earned the highest grade on each assignment. One of her first submissions, the portrait of a scientist, was particularly exceptional. She used original photographs that challenged the class to determine what she had in mind, what she was proud of and what teaching science experiences she had.

Another perfectly well designed and professionally presented project was her science station that she competed with her group. Angela skillfully followed the criteria of the rubric and the guidelines provided by the professor on the course Moodle website. She mastered the use of the website and creatively designed a learning adventure for her students. Here are the URL’s to her web sites:

To The Moon & Back E-FOLIO

To the Moon & BackBlog

Moon Phase Journal

Angela’s best work, however, involved the use of technology in the microteaching lessons in our course. She created numerous Google documents including a superb presentation on a balloon experiment done in class. I was very impressed with how she utilized Google docs, that I showed her presentation during an IROC Seminar held here at Mount Saint Mary College. She used Xtranormal.com to create a movie dialogue from her interview with a scientist she had, and did an inquiry problem-solving lesson on "Chemical Changes in Matter." The latter demo lesson came from her observations of 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade science classes at Bishop Dunn Memorial School, where she taught her lesson to a 5th grade science class.

Angela applied many of the techniques and concepts that she learned in our class to great effect during her Fieldwork experience at Bishop Dunn Elementary School. In the science classes at school, she utilized role-plays, simulations, inductive approaches, and problem-solving exercises among other methods.

Given Angela’s teaching skills and subject knowledge, she would be a worthy candidate for a teaching position.

Please feel free to contact me should you require additional information.

Sincerely,

Dr. Ludmilla Smirnova, Ph.D

Professor of Education

Mount Saint Mary College,

Newburgh, NY

Tel.: 845-669-3527