College of tducation

COLLECE or
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EDUCATION)
lIlC;llGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
Yu-Han Hung
huneYuha@,msu.edu
Department of Teacher
Education
620FarmLane
118D Erickson Hall
East Lansing, MI
48824
608-712-4388
(c)
MSU is on offirmdtive oction,
eq u al -opportu ni ty e m
Pl
oY er.
IJNIYTRSITY
April.21.2074
Dear Colleagues:
This letter is written on behalf of Samantha Georgi for the position of
secondary social studies instructor. I have had the pleasure to observe Sam
during her student-teaching internship at Haslett High School in Haslett,
Michigan, where she teaches U.S. History and English courses. Sam is both an
extremely competent and aconfident educator of young people. She is an
outstanding coieague who immediately assumed leadership positions within
her internsfiip school. In short, I highly recommend her, as I believe she will be
a strong leader in the field of education.
Sam did a very good
job
of employing important social studies concepts and
ideas in the material she was teaching, thereby taking the first step towards
identifyng enduring understanding, and creating meaningful leaming
experiences for her students. When I saw her teach, she emphasized big ideas
.lr"h u.
.,critical
thinking" or "historical thinking." I also saw her giving
sustained attention to the major culture, contrasting and comparing the tenets
and practices of each. These are important big ideas for orgatizing a Social
Studies course. Additionally, she regularly used documentary analysis and
writing in an effective manner, and as the year progressed, she gave more
attention to developing assignments that assessed a wide range of student
skills. By the end of ttre year, she was gaining much skill in using writing and
texts to facilitate student discussion and higher-order thinking. In short, Sam is
growing into a very powerful social studies educator'
Sam's classroom was very wellrun, and she respected and did an excellent
job
of appearing as a real person before her students,
yet maintaining the authority
that aclassroom teacher needs. She also had an especially strong relationship
with her mentors with whom she did a lot of curriculum co-planning' Clearly,
she was more than up to the challenge.
I would of course be happy to speak at greatet length about her qualifications.
Please feel free to contact me (1-608-772-4388, or hungyuha@.msu'edu)
if you
should have any further questions.
Sincerely,
-Han Hung
Secondary Social Studies,
Michigan State University
edcher Education