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

Mr. Coon 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 Bryce that will assist you in determining if Bryces qualifications meet the needs of your institution. In my estimation, Bryce is an excellent candidate for a secondary teaching position in social studies education and I intend for this letter to assist in demonstrating why. I have known Bryce 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 coinstructor of the course, I worked with Bryce to develop curriculum materials, improve instructional strategies, and practice pedagogical skills in microteaching exercises and supervised classroom settings. He proved himself to be one of the most outstanding students not only in our cohort of approximately 90 students, but also in the entire secondary teacher education program. He consistently made rich contributions to class discussions, interacted with his colleagues in productive and meaningful ways, and demonstrated a deep interest in learning more about the professional of social studies education beyond what our course could offer. Reports from his mentor teacher for clinical field experiences in St. Johns were always positive and supported by the impressive array of teaching materials and lesson plans he constructed for his field placement classes, including a memorable lesson on political parties and civic engagement. Bryce would often stay after class and ask questions about teaching social studies that spoke to his desire to always improve and grow as a teacher. Indeed, if I were to identify one area in which Bryce needs to improve as a novice teacher, it would be for Bryce to find peace with imperfection and not attempt to be a master teacher before he has his own classroom! He spends weeknights, weekends, and university breaks working on tweaking his lessons and materials. It helps that this girlfriend is also a preservice teacher, otherwise I would worry that Bryce may get burnt out from his drive to be a great teacher. And, as a new teacher entering our profession, he is indeed great. His experiences at Holt High School have been invaluable in providing him wide exposure to multiple teaching styles and dispositions across the social studies disciplines. Bryce and I have often spoken about his ability to make high school students understand complex economic concepts, concepts even I have difficulty understanding. If I had the time, I would offer to contract Bryce as a tutor so that I could be better versed in economicsa testament to how skilled he is at explaining abstract concepts. Bryce is also skilled at working with adolescent learners, perhaps one of the greatest areas of concern I had as I helped hire new teachers in my departments. 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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teachers make whilst teaching in their twenties. This was made evident to me during the spring semester of 2011 when Bryce 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, Bryce 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 Bryces 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. Bryce also distinguished himself this academic year by his voluntary attendance at the National Council for the Social Studies annual conference in Washington, D.C. in November. Bryce attended a number of sessions, workshops, and keynote addresses where he as able to see first-hand the large network of national initiatives and projects aimed at improving instruction in social studies education. Having him join your staff will be an investment in ensuring your students and faculty will have a vibrant, passionate educator to work with, one who is committed to improving student successes and achievement not only in the social studies disciplines, but also in areas of writing, reading, and critical thinking vital to the rigorousand changingdemands of what counts as a high school education today. 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. Bryce 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, from coaching (his own background as a runner comes to mind) to sponsoring clubs (I can see Bryce sponsoring a successful Model U.N. or Mock Trial team). Writing letters for my students as they enter the job market sometimes seems like an irrelevant task, given that they will be competing with each other and, perhaps, leading to whatever I might have to say about them null and void when reading recommendations from me. Be that as it may, Bryce is not like any other student and, as such, this letter is not written from the same evaluative stance as many others I have written in the past have been. He is a suburb candidate for a position in either the social studies or English language arts (or both). Were I to be back serving on a schools hiring committee, I would place Bryce right at the top of a short list of candidates. I hope you will do the same. Very kind regards, Mark Helmsing University Distinguished Fellow Department of Teacher Education