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UN IVE

Spring 2015

To Whom It May Concern:

I am pleased to have the opportunity to provide a letter of reference for Megan Wiles. I
was Ms. Wiles' mathematics education professor for Children and Mathematics: Grades
PreK-6 (Part II). This graduate level course addresses teaching Geometry, Measurement,
Probability and Statistics to PreK-6 students. During this course I had many opportunities
to observe her level of mathematical content knowledge and the methods and planning
she learned during her teacher education program.
Ms. Wiles is responsible and dependable and she maintains high standards and
expectations for all of her students. She completed all assignments on time and in a highquality manner. The assignments for my class alone required her to think critically about
the needs of her students and the best approaches required to meet those needs. One
assignment in particular required her to write a problem-solving lesson plan by utilizing
current research (Teaching Children Mathematics - an NCTM publication), integrating a
children's mathematics book, and differentiating among ability levels within the
classroom. Prior to writing her third-grade lesson plan, she read an article specifically
designed for teaching money concepts to children. In particular, she wanted to learn more
about her students' prior knowledge in order to tailor her lesson to meet those needs. Her
meaningful lesson plan included examples of when, why, and how we use money in the
real world. She incorporated the children's book, The Penny Pot by Stuart Murphy, to
further engage her students. Throughout the reading, her students used real coins to make
a variety of combinations of values presented in the book. She encouraged her students to
create different combinations for the same value, making sure to address why we (often)
use the fewest number of coins. She concluded her lesson by continuing the story and
having students individually make change for their 'pot' of money collected throughout
the reading. Her lesson plan included thoughtful, probing questions and she was prepared
with possible student responses - both correct and incorrect.
Another assignment required Ms. Wiles to write a pre-assessment for her third-grade
students related to an upcoming topic. Using the pre-assessment results, she had to
determine and report on the strengths and areas for improvement for each child. She
made both criterion- and norm-referenced graphs for the data and interpreted them both
quantitatively and qualitatively. Using the results, she grouped her students for further
instruction (by similar needs, not heterogeneously). Once the students were grouped she
wrote appropriate, measureable learning objectives based on each groups' needs.
Fortunately, Ms. Wiles was able to pre-assess her students based on the money lesson
plan previously mentioned. In her reflection, Ms: Wiles stated, 'Because my lesson plan
was actually developed from this assessment, I was able to see, firsthand, how much
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more effective a lesson is when it is differentiated for student needs. I was able to test my
students' prior knowledge and then use this information to create my lesson plan'. She
further stated, '[I learned] that analysis goes beyond simple observation, and even beyond
simple graphs ... Graphs alone cannot determine student understanding. Even simple
observations cannot show the teacher an accurate portrayal of student understanding'.
Throughout this mathematics methods course I was continually impressed with her
dedication to her own mathematics learning and the subsequent educational success of
her students. She worked hard for and earned an A in my course.
Megan has proven that she has the knowledge, capability and desire to become a
classroom teacher. Please feel free to contact me if you would like additional
information.
Sincerely,

Ann H. Wallace, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Mathematics Education
James Madison University
540-246-6284
wallacah@jmu.edu