Susan P. Miller, Ph.D.

Affiliations: 

• Professor Emeritus, Department of Special Education - University of Nevada Las Vegas
• Certified SIM Professional Developer - University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning

Background and Interests:
One of my favorite childhood pastimes was playing school. My students, at that very young age, included stuffed animals, dolls, and sometimes neighborhood friends. My more formal teaching experience was acquired years later when I taught employability skills to adults who lived in poverty, social studies and compensatory math to junior- and senior-high students without disabilities, reading and language arts to middle-school students with disabilities, and math, reading, and language arts to elementary students with and without disabilities. I loved each of these teaching experiences, and I like to believe that I touched the lives of my students in positive ways.

Subsequent to this teaching experience I worked as Program Administrator for the Multidisciplinary Diagnostic and Training Program at the University of Florida and currently serve as a Professor of Special Education at the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV). In this role, I teach courses in learning strategies, instructional methodology, and leadership. My research interests focus on learning strategies and mathematics interventions. I’ve had the opportunity to share much of what I’ve learned from colleagues within the SIM network, teachers, and students as author of Validated Practices for Teaching Students with Diverse Needs and Abilities and as co-author of Designing and Implementing Mathematics Instruction for Students with Diverse Learning Needs as well as the Strategic Math Series.

The Story Behind the Strategic Math Series: Level 2
Upon completion of the Strategic Math Series: Level 1, I knew that additional work should be done with skills that extended beyond basic math facts and initial place value. Through my work with teachers in the area of mathematics, skill deficits related to addition and subtraction with regrouping and related word problems consistently emerged as areas of particular concern. Bradley Kaffar, one of my previous doctoral mentees and one the coauthors of Addition With Regrouping and Subtraction With Regrouping programs, contacted me about conducting math-related research in a summer camp designed for students needing help in elementary math skills (e.g., addition and subtraction with regrouping). The rest is history. Lessons were developed, field tested and revised until we believed they were ready for publication. We were thrilled to learn that Jean Schumaker and Don Deshler supported the initiation of Level 2 of the Strategic Math Series.