As a practicing teacher, the Teacher in Residence becomes a resource in the School’s efforts to understand human learning and improve education. The Teacher in Residence also gains expertise, innovative ideas and leadership potential to enrich the public schools, especially by leading the integration of new research and technologies.
Millerd, who was selected because of her experience in teacher professional development, will work with SESP professor James Spillane and University of Nebraska professor Ruth Heaton on their “Nebraska Math” research project to examine teacher advice networks in Nebraska elementary school districts. With the goal of improving mathematics education, the project will provide new understanding of how the formal and informal structure of school organizations affects school leadership and student achievement. It will also provide important understanding of the effectiveness of different strategies for strengthening mathematics education.
“I believe that the work Nebraska Math is doing is vital to the growth of not only our teachers but our students as well. Many teachers in Omaha have been very resistant to the adoption of our new and more rigorous math standards, and do not have the training or prior experience to teach such standards effectively. The Nebraska Math program provides invaluable support for teachers, who can then provide it for others within their buildings. The program is reaching out to educators across the state at a time when teachers are very much in need of support in the area of mathematics education in order to be successful and teach meaningful mathematics to their students,” Millerd says.
“Being a teacher in residence and getting to work on the other side of the Nebraska Math programs has given me a great appreciation for the size and complexity of the project, as well as the enormous amount of work that many people did at the University to research and find funding for teachers like me to further their education and mathematical foundations. I have gotten a good glimpse this fall at the amount of research that needs to be done in order to prove that the Nebraska Math projects produce results and are worthy of continued funding and support,” she adds.
Millerd's personal experience with Nebraska Math changed her as a learner as well as a teacher. When she participated in one of its programs called Math Matters as an undergraduate, it changed her views on mathematics drastically. “I went from math being one of my least favorite subjects to it being my specialization. By my second year as a teacher for Omaha Public Schools, I was asked to be not only the sixth-grade math specialist but the math liaison for the entire building as well,” she notes. Later as a teacher, participating in the program's Math in the Middle teacher leadership sessions changed her career path. “The program itself was intense, pushing me to do mathematics I had either never done before or had not seen since high school. A major difference the second time around, however, was the type of instruction that we received and how it affected my learning. Things that I understood how to rotely do in high school now had meanings and connections that I had been unable to see before. Mathematics began to make sense to me on a whole other level. This helped to increase my confidence,” she says.
So far as Teacher in Residence, Millerd has been helping with student testing and data analysis to ascertain the impact of the mathematics programs Primarily Math and Math in the Middle. Soon she will assist Spillane in his efforts to gather qualitative research data in Nebraska schools, most likely by interviewing educators and videotaping instruction in the classroom.