April

18, 2017

To Whom it May Concern:

I have the pleasure of writing you about Ms. Kate Hojnacki. I served as Kates cooperating teacher during her year-
long student teaching placement from Oakland University. In our year together Kate focused her efforts in teaching
chemistry, which at Fraser is a sophomore level course. Each semester Kate taught 5 classes of approximately 30
students each.

Kate impressed me from the first day we met and talked about teaching. Kate was already completing work in a
professional development opportunity that had her designing a unit to be used during her student teaching
experience. Her unit design was for a unit on thermochemistry, which was a topic that needed to be reworked in our
curriculum. The unit she designed encompassed all aspects of good teaching, formative and summative assessments,
inquiry and guided inquiry based laboratory work, thought provoking opening and closing questions as well a demo
that made the kids go oh, wow, cool. The final aspect of the unit was the two day lab experience the students got
that required them to engineer a calorimeter, test their calorimeter and then reflect on the entire process. This lab
experience is something that we will be using in our curriculum for years to come and will use as a model as we
design new lab experiences.

On top being able to prepare excellently designed unit and lesson plans; Kate has a phenomenal ability to connect
with students at any level. During lectures, labs and activities Kate is always roaming the room answering questions,
leading struggling students with probing questions and making sure students are on task. From her first week in the
classroom, students recognized her knowledge of content, her caring nature and her desire for their success. The
students were quick to ask her questions and learn from her teaching.

Kates ability to augment class assignments to meet the needs of our students and our curriculum are far above what I
expected from a student teacher. She is always coming up with fresh ideas to explore a concept, her ideas were
targeted for maximum student engagement with the material at all levels; writing about a concept, talking about the
concept and preparing a short defense of student reasoning were just a few of the highly successful methods she
adaopted.

Finally Kate quickly became a part of the fabric of our Chemistry PLC and our department in general. She joined with
2 other department members to organize and lead the first Science Olympiad team our high school has hosted.
Science Olympiad is an area that Kate will continue to be interested in to help build a strong science curriculum at
whichever school she teaches in.

If you have any further questions in regards to Ms. Kate Hojnacki or this letter, please contact me via email at
Gregory.dalida@Fraserk12.org or by phone at (586) 913-5949.




Gregory R. Dalida
Fraser High School
Chemistry Teacher