Danielle Schwartz

The College of New Jersey! 2000 Pennington Road, Ewing, NJ 08628! 609.771.2575
Danielle.Schwartz@tcnj.edu

March 25, 2016

To Whom It May Concern:
I highly recommend Allison Lutz for a math teaching position in your district. From 2010 through 2016, I had the privilege
of co-teaching seventh grade math with Allison at Cresskill Middle School. Every year, we were challenged with a group of
diverse learners. Over the course of our five years teaching together, an increasing number of families requested that their
children enter our co-teaching class instead of the resource room setting for which they were slated. This was a testament to
Allisons high expectations of all students and her willingness to provide supports that would help each student succeed.
Allison was eager to come up with strategies and teaching materials that would be accessible. In fact, she redesigned her
benchmark lessons using Universal Design for Learning methodology. Additionally, she provided students with
differentiated activities to address different students learning styles, interests, and readiness levels. As a reflective teacher,
she never stopped improving, no matter how much work was involved.
Allison designs her math classes using the principles of a Learner Active, Technology-Infused Classroom. By starting with a
meaningful and relevant problem-based learning task, the students are instantly engaged and they understand the purpose of
learning the given math unit. Her highly structured and scaffolded instruction promotes success for all students.
Understanding that some students learn best when each process is broken down into its most basic steps, she modifies her
teaching strategies and sequence of lessons, when appropriate, to support those students. Once the students learn a new skill
or concept, she provides them with a variety of activities to practice and extend their learning. Allison is able to effectively
manage a classroom of students who are working on a variety of activities while providing one-on-one and small group
instruction.
Allison has mastery of the math curriculum, yet faces many students whose struggles with the content impact their
confidence and interest in the subject. As a teacher, her excitement about the topic is prevalent; however, she knows that her
own passion for math does not result in students who love math. Therefore, she consistently incorporates and creates games
as well as other interesting activities that her students truly enjoy, which helps them to create a new relationship with the
subject. Before math tests, despite the fact that some of the students are nervous, every student becomes excited to play a fun
and competitive math review game. Moreover, she creates problem-based learning tasks that engage every student. For
example, she created one problem-based learning task for a unit on equations all about charitable walk-a-thons, knowing that
her particular group of students were constantly seeking opportunities to be philanthropic.
Allison cultivates a culture of learning in her classroom. She uses effective questioning techniques and develops students
ability to tackle challenging problems using higher-order thinking skills. She fosters a growth mindset, by encouraging
students to continue to learn skills until they feel confident. Another example of how Allison establishes a community of
learners is her encouragement of attending before and after school extra help; there is always a group of students in her
classroom before and after school. Her patience and dedication, along with clear instruction, is often exactly what a student
needs to feel more confident for an upcoming assessment. While developing math skills is an essential objective in all of her
classes, so is promoting students self-advocacy and decision-making skills. Allison helps her students learn self-assessment
techniques, thus making them more self-aware and more accountable for their own learning. As a result, students choose
activities that challenge them rather than choosing activities that are too easy or too frustrating. Additionally, by utilizing a
help board and a mini-lesson sign-up board, students learn to be comfortable asking for the support they need. Through a

combination of supporting students to self-assess as well as Allisons various formative assessment strategies, she also
promotes decision-making. She helps her students make informed decisions, learning to select activities that not only match
their individual learning styles, but also their level of comfort with the material.
Valuing strong collaboration with families and believing that every student can learn, given the right supports, results in
Allisons effective communication with parents. Parents responded well to Allison because it is always evident that she knows
each student well and is determined to use any and every strategy to promote a students success. Additionally, meetings with
parents are followed by a clear action plan and Allison consistently follows through. Allison fully embraced the co-teaching
model, further demonstrating that collaboration was important to her. The success of a co-teaching partnership is
dependent on the willingness of both the general education teacher and special education teacher to co-plan, co-teach and
co-assess. Allison recognizes the benefit of co-teaching and utilizes different approaches and activities in her co-teaching
section that best meets the needs of her students. She is always willing to learn and continues to add new strategies to her
toolbox. Accordingly, she incorporates effective special education strategies she has gleaned from her close work with special
education teachers into her other sections to benefit all of her students.
Allison stays current with educational technology trends and integrates tool after tool in order to better meet her students
needs. She is a model teacher and several teachers within and outside of district have observed her deliver highly effective
instruction. In addition, as a natural leader and strong teacher, Allison was asked to coach and mentor other teachers,
turnkey multiple initiatives and design her own workshops around technology, the flipped classroom, student engagement,
student-centered learning, effective teaching strategies, etc. I was lucky to learn so much from Allison and she was
instrumental in my professional growth.
Allison consistently demonstrated all of the skills of an effective teacher. I am beyond confident that Allison Lutz will be an
asset to your district and will become strongly connected to the community in order to build her rapport with the students,
families and other community members. Her dedication to her craft, leadership skills and passion for learning and teaching
make Allison the perfect teacher for your district. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to me.
Sincerely,

Danielle Schwartz
Program Coordinator
Center for Sensory and Complex Disabilities
The College of New Jersey