Kate Miller started her career as a high school physics teacher at a new public school in Brooklyn. She spent four years helping to build the science department and served as department chair her last year there. During this time she also completed a master's in Science Education at Teachers College focusing on curriculum development. She then transitioned to the informal education sphere into the brand new position of Senior Manager of Curriculum and Teaching in the Youth Initiatives Department at the American Museum of Natural History. During her three years in this role she oversaw the development of a comprehensive program of courses for middle and high school students participating in after-school programs at the museum. She also hired and trained a core team of full-time teachers for the department. Additionally, she taught for the Master of Arts in Teaching Earth Science program and developed and implemented professional development for the entire Youth Initiatives Department. During her time at AMNH she was also involved in the Development of the Reflecting on Practice Program (http://reflectingonpractice.org/), a national development program for informal educators. At the University of Pennsylvania, Kate has worked on multiple large grant-funded projects including acting as project manager for one of them.

Kate is primarily interested in data literacy in the science classroom and the intersection of teacher professional development and informal science education.

BioInformatics: Teaching High School Biology and Environmental Science Through Data Literacy, Informatics, and Mobile Learning to Take Action in the Local Community

In conjunction with Penn's Medical School, this project utilizes high school biology and environmental science content and big data to understand health issues in today's world. Through a three-week summer PD, teachers learn how to support students to engage with real world environmental datasets using the latest scientific techniques to collect and analyze biological data. Their students will construct mobile tools to collect data in their neighborhood for comparison and advance solutions for how to improve their local environment. The goals of this project are to do exploratory research on this new intervention and determine its potential for scale. Kate's dissertation is delving deeper into the pedagogical content knowledge held by high school science teachers on data literacy and teaching with and about data within their science classrooms in the context of the Bioinformatics curriculum.

BioGraph 2.0 - Teaching High School Biology Through Systems, Models, and Argumentation

An online course for high school biology teachers which integrates the power of systems thinking and computer models designed to ‘bring to life’ biology topics including evolution, ecology and the chemistry of life. Developed in collaboration with Penn-GSE and MIT, this six-week interactive and collaborative professional development course teaches teachers how to use online simulations to develop core biology content and practices, aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards. The research involves a design-based implementation design in order to continuously improve the course and its outcomes. Our research team is examining design features for collaboration and social capital development in a large-scale Massive Open Online Course (MOOC).

Riverbend Environmental Education Center, Summer Science Institute and Fellowship

Nature provides an authentic setting to practice observation, asking questions, building investigations and solving problems. This week-long institute which is offered in partnership with the Riverbend Environmental Center, University of Pennsylvania and three other Informal Science Institutions across Philadelphia, focuses on food and the environment, exploring urban agriculture, water and ecosystem health. Teachers visit a different institution each day of the institute, connect with experts in the field of science education, and participate in lessons that utilize the practices of science to explore how changing environmental conditions will impact our food systems. Using the 5E cycle for inquiry, teachers build a hands-on, inquiry based lesson that aligns to their classroom requirements, PSSA Science Eligible content, PA Academic Standards, and NGSS. Our research team is interested in how to both improve and scale up this project.