Recently, that passion and desire led her to the top of the International Technology and Engineering Educators Association, where she'll lead 1,500 members from across the world as president-elect to the organization in March and subsequently as president from 2025 to 2026.
Leading the association "takes somebody that's passionate and has the desire to see our field grow and see our field be successful in our goals," said Andy Stephenson, chair to the organization's elections committee.
Stephenson, a retired teacher who works part-time as a Technology Student Association Coordinator in the Kentucky Department of Education, said he and several other organization members nominated her for the position. He said he was pleased with what he'd observed attending a few of her sessions at the organization's annual conference.
"You can tell how passionate she was about what she was teaching, how she treated her students, what she was trying to gain through what she was doing in her classroom and how she felt about the profession," Stephenson said.
And, Stephenson said, she seemed busy.
"The old saying is if you want something done right, find someone that's busy," Stephenson said.
While Miller, 32, agreed that she is busy, she said she's learned to compartmentalize her time in a way that works for her.
In the early hours of the morning, before school starts, Miller said she focuses on preparing work on the board of the national association's Pennsylvania branch — and will now spend that time on the national association. During school hours, she is completely focused on teaching.
Then, at 3 she becomes a wife to her husband, Brent, 32, who works as a mechanical engineer, and mother to her 5- and 8-year-old children. The family lives in South Lebanon Township, Lebanon County, and her children attend South Lebanon Elementary School in the Cornwall-Lebanon School District.
"I only have this much time and I'm going to really focus ... on each of these parts with the amount of time and respect and focus that each of these is going to take," Miller said. "It's been a struggle that I think I've got down over the years."
SHIFTING ROLES
Miller began teaching at Penn Manor after graduating from Millersville University in 2013. From an early age, Miller said, she knew she'd be a teacher but just needed to sort out the subject matter.
Miller said she was a gifted learner and most classes came really easy to her, but her technology education class was different.
"It was probably one of the first times that I felt really challenged or that I had to think different or that it was meaningful," Miller said.
The thrill of a challenge sold her on technology education as a career, so she started as a woodworking teacher at Penn Manor High School. Miller, a Lebanon County native, graduated from Cedar Crest High School in 2009.
Her role at Penn Manor has changed over the years as she advocated for classes for engineers and for the high school to offer computer science classes in 2016.
"While I've been here for 11 years, that role has kind of shifted and morphed as we see what do students need and what does the world around us need," Miller said.
Currently she teaches courses in computer science, engineering design and applied science. She spends the first few months of a class teaching the students before offering them time to work independently and dive deeper into class material that interests them.
"It's really important that students, whether they're a freshman or senior, see that they can also guide their learning," Miller said.
During one of her computer science classes last December, she attentively visited each student, checking in on their progress with the websites they were building or cybersecurity workshops they were devising. Students making progress were allowed to leave the classroom to participate in various extracurriculars, like the school's information technology help desk.
Sitting atop the cabinets in her classroom are rows of awards she or the district's Technology Student Association — where she serves as an advisor — earned. In 2018, Miller was named Secondary Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Teacher of the Year by the Lancaster County STEM Alliance.
Despite the many accolades and recognitions, Miller said she was surprised upon learning her peers had selected her as a leader.
"These are positions and associations that I've spent a lot of time looking up to and being guided by," Miller said. "To be given the trust to guide it is a big vote of confidence in what my fellow members and teachers think of me as a person and what I can bring to the group."
GOALS FOR THE ORGANIZATION
The association is "definitely bigger than just North America, which is what makes the conferences and the association so valuable," Miller said. "You get a drastically different perspective based on who you're talking to."
As president-elect, Miller said she'll be heavily involved in working with the association's committees such as the groups who manage membership, dole out awards and plan the association's conferences.
Once she becomes president, she said she'll continue working with the committees but add on overseeing the conference and communicating the importance of technology education to politicians and policy makers.
A big thing for her will be teacher recruitment and encouraging more students to become tech and engineering teachers, Miller said, as college graduates going into the profession are slim.
At least 39 states, the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands reported ongoing teacher shortages, including subject matter vacancies in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, according to a 2023 survey conducted by ABC News.
"Like all teachers are in a shortage, tech and engineering teachers are in a shortage," Miller said.
©2024 LNP (Lancaster, Pa.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
