April, 2014 Mary Tonti Saint Leo the Great School 4900 Broadview Road Cleveland, Ohio 44109 Tontim@saintleoschurch.org To Whom It May Concern: RE: Chris Kenny Tam writing this letter on behalf of Mr. Chris Kenny. Chris Kenny spent the first half of the 2013-2014 school year with me as a pre-student teacher. 1 served as his coordinating teacher for two sections of eighth grade Algebra two days a week. I have known Chris Kenny for several years as he is a St. Leo Alumni who volunteers at Parish functions and tutors students in the summer when he is not working. Chris is well-prepared and very knowledgeable in the subject matter he was asked to teach. His lessons plans were very thorough and included appropriate classroom strategies to assist in teaching, We had several meetings to develop lessons that met the required teaching practices of his Degree program and to fit the need of my eighth grade Algebra content. Chris was careful to plan activities that the students would be responsive to and achieve the goal of the lessons, Chris’ lessons were diverse and incorporated a variety of instructional methods, instruction and modeling, discovery and inquiry based as well as cooperative learning. His lessons kept the students involved and challenged the students to work at a higher level of thinking during the first semester of their Algebra curricula. He taught them content, such as skills to solve equations as well as new content such as, converting Roman Numerals to add and subtract. He encouraged the kids to challenge themselves to achieve success by being very precise and detailed in their work. Chris took time to work with students in the classroom along with assisting students from my other 6" and 7" grade math classes. He is enthusiastic about teaching math maintained a good relationship with faculty and students by getting to know them and spending time to help them. Chris was helpful in assisting with daily classroom duties and assisting even when he wasn’t expected to teach the class. Chris has proven to be highly qualified in his teaching area and will be a successful teacher in the future. I encourage you to meet with Chris and give my recommendation for you to give him serious consideration for employment. If you have further questions, feel free to contact me. Sincerely, Mar Teak a Mary Tonti Math Teacher, Saint Leo the Great School