Transverse. Longitudinal. Amplitude. Slinky.
Donna Miller’s eighth grade classroom at Windy Hill Middle School is infused with sophisticated science vocabulary and a sprinkling of kid-friendly terms. The result? A rigorous, engaging lesson that builds true understanding of the concept through application and a little fun.
As the 2016 Calvert County Public Schools Teacher of the Year, Ms. Miller knows a thing or two about excellence in the classroom. In her 28th year of teaching, Ms. Miller is held in high regard by her colleagues at the state and local level. According to her principal James Kurtz, Ms. Miller’s students like and respect her as well, and that’s far more important to her than the many professional accolades she has received during her career. Ms. Miller cares deeply about educating the “whole child” and fostering an ongoing desire for learning so that her students leave her classroom as responsible, self-disciplined, and independent learners.
What does her philosophy look like in practice? Slinkys stretched across the hallway outside of her classroom held by smiling students conducting experiments about waves. Ms. Miller is energized at the prospect of redesigning her instruction to meet the rigor of the Next Generation Science Standards, and she uses familiar situations and materials to teach complex concepts. Notable in her classroom is the value she places on student voices. She encourages students to write down what their classmates say during class discussions, thereby showing them that what they know is important.
Mr. Kurtz believes that one of Ms. Miller’s talents is her keen ability to advance her students’ capacity to communicate abstract concepts in writing. “I have seen writing samples from her classes,” he said, “including from students with disabilities, which clearly show how much influence she has on her students’ writing skills.”
This year, Mrs. Miller was chosen from a pool of hundreds of teachers across the nation to be a Northrup Grumman Teacher Fellow. This prestigious distinction involves collaborating with teachers nationwide to identify and develop authentic engineering design practices for implementation in the classroom. Through this fellowship, she was able to work with Northrop Grumman engineers to design and implement specific STEM content linked to real-world problems.
As county Teacher of the Year, Ms. Miller is most looking forward to doing even more collaborating with her counterparts from across Maryland. Ms. Miller is not only an exemplary educator; she is a model of leadership among her colleagues.
