To Whom It May Concern:

This was my 15th year teaching and I had the pleasure of working
with a student teacher, Kate Blodgett, from the University of Maine in
Augusta. Although Kate was there to learn about teaching, I probably
learned much from her also. She was energizing and had new ideas
and techniques to try with our students.
I was extremely fortunate to have Kate in my class while working
through a EarthComm curriculum with the Physical Science Partnership
from UMO. We worked through many lab investigations together,
repeating them, as the students brought up questions and procedures
were altered to fit the level of students we were teaching. Kate also
took charge of 2 Pre-AP Biology classes and a College Prep Class.
She prepared for her lectures by reading though the text and
additional materials I made available to her. She went over lab
activities that I had and went through looking for new lab activities.
Kates involvement with the students was apparent in the relationships
that she began to build with them. She was concerned with their
whole learning experience and would spend much of her free time
before school, during lunch and asking them to come in for morning
RTI. This has given Kate an idea of how much time teachers spend
outside of their school day with students.
Kate has increased her confidence in front of the classroom just
within the two month she has been at Belfast Area High School . The
semester is flying by with Kate teaching. She has been student
teaching for 3 of my classes and 1 class for another teacher, with what
I would call a tough class. She has been planning her lessons,
coordinating labs, grading their work, using infinite campus to record
their grades, and has entered progress reports for all of her students..
I feel honored to have shared in the role of mentor for Kate
during her student teaching experience and look forward to hearing
about her full teaching stories she will have in her teaching career.

Elizabeth K. Baker
Science Teacher;
Belfast Area High School;
Belfast, Maine