New Mexico educator Silvia Miranda has garnered a prestigious Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching. Photo Credit: PAEMST
Congratulations to New Mexico educator Silvia Miranda, who has garnered a Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching (PAEMST). This prestigious award honors the dedication, hard work, and important role that America’s teachers play in supporting learners who will become future STEM professionals, including computer technologists, climate scientists, mathematicians, innovators, space explorers, and engineers.
Silvia currently works with kindergarteners through second graders at Mesa Elementary School and James Bickley Elementary School in Clovis, New Mexico. In her classroom, Silvia sets high standards for herself and her students. In her curriculum, she emphasizes whole brain strategies, a growth mindset philosophy, interest-based learning, and data-driven instruction.
During the pandemic, when her students were told they could not use the school playground for safety reasons, Silvia designed a lesson that asked her students to plan a playground that would allow for social distancing, using their newly-acquired multiplication and division skills to compute areas and to stay within a budget. In another lesson, she established a weather station and led her students in discovery learning about the links between water and weather and life. As part of that lesson, her students became “weather pals” with students in Africa, where they talked about wells and water issues.
In addition to her work in her school, Silvia is a Khan Academy Ambassador and a Statistics in our Schools Ambassador. She has served as a Clovis Municipal Schools Teacher Leader since 2018, was a state ambassador for the NM Teacher Leader Network for two years, and served on the state Secretary’s Teacher Advisory.
For her work as an educator, Silvia has earned many accolades. She is a 2020 NSTA Teacher Awards finalist, a 2018 Milken Educator Award recipient, was Clovis Teacher of the Year in 2018, and was a NM Teacher of the Year finalist. She has been awarded many grants for STEM education.
Silvia earned her Bachelor’s degree, summa cum laude, in Elementary Education from Eastern New Mexico University. She earned her Master’s degree, summa cum laude, in Education Literacy from Wayland Baptist University. She is a National Board Certified Teacher for early and middle childhood literacy, and she is certified in kindergarten through eighth grade elementary education with an endorsement in bilingual education.
