_ fi Mount Mary TVERSITY March 3, 2016 Dear Administrator: Asa faculty member at Mount Mary University, I have had the opportunity to work with Elizabeth Idzikowski Kornilowicz during her time at the University. She completed our licensure program during the 2012-13 academic year. She has also recently enrolled in our Graduate Program in Education, with the intent of earning the Reading Teacher license. My experience with Elizabeth gives me a unique perspective on her growth as a teacher over time. Throughout this time period, | have seen her grow in confidence in her own abilities, advance in her understanding of children and their learning, and develop an increasing number of resources and skills to use in her classroom. Even as an undergraduate pre-service teacher, Elizabeth was student-centered in her approach to lessons and activities. When I observed her in one of her early field experiences, she had planned a variety of learning experiences to actively engage the students in the lesson. The activities were fun and students were eager to participate, but they were also structured in such a way as to help students develop fluency with important academic vocabulary and language skills. Now as a classroom teacher, it is apparent that Elizabeth has a deep understanding of child development, the different rates at which individual children develop, and the ways in which that development impacts the students’ learning needs. She clearly understands, for example, that there are many domains of development and that the young children in her care are developing socially and emotionally as much as cognitively, and that to be truly student-centered, she must attend to all those domains in classroom interactions. Elizabeth is dedicated to her own growth and development as an educator. In addition to her work in graduate courses, she uses online resources such as webinars to enhance her skills and to access classroom resources. She has shared many of these resources with her graduate classmates who have begun exploring these same avenues of professional growth. She also eagerly learns from her classmates and instructors quickly applying practices she learned in reading assessment, for example. Elizabeth is an advocate for her students and their learning needs. She confidently uses research on best practices in the field to make and implement instructional decisions. | am pleased to recommend her for your consideration. Sincerely, Cab desmeagin) Debra M. Dosemagen, Ph.D. Chair, Education Department Director, Graduate Program in Education 2900 North Menomonee River Parkway * Milwaukee, WI 53222-4597 + (414) 258-4810 + mtmary.edu