Virginia Mathematics Teacher Spring 2017

Communicating in the Universal Language of Mathematics: Note from the Editor Dr. Agida Manizade As mathematics teachers, one of our main

post industrial world that is data intense, and they will need to be able to comprehend, analyze, and communicate the patterns they encounter. The theme of this issue is Communicating in the Universal Language of Math, and we asked authors to share their ideas about doing mathematics, and communicating in this universal language with their students. We enjoyed putting this issue together, and hope you find inspirational and useful ideas for your K-12 classroom. We invite you to share your thoughts and practices by submitting practitioner-oriented articles that help to inform other mathematics teachers. We also encourage you to participated in the HEXA Challenge and Busting Blockbusters, and to challenge your students to do the same.

goals is to engage students in doing mathematics. But how often do we stop to think about, “what is mathematics?” and “what does it mean to do mathematics?”. In the regular k-12 curriculum, do we engage in doing mathematics? Does adding and subtracting numbers or memorizing a set of formulas qualify as doing mathematics? Does a student do mathematics when using ‘technology as a master’ where he or she takes for granted any output generated by technology, without engaging in mathematical thinking or without evaluating the quality of the the outcome? If we were to ask our students what mathematics is, and what it meant to do mathematics, what would they say? One way to think about mathematics is as a language to describe and communicate patterns we encounter in our lives. Some of the patterns we see in nature and human behavior are simple, while others seem chaotic. From simple Putnam squares and golden ratios, to predicting climate patterns or spread of disease, the more mathematics we learn, the more we are able to observe, describe, and predict the patterns around us. My goal as a mathematics teacher is to create classroom environments in which students think critically about these patterns, ask and answer complex questions, and communicate their ideas with their peers. Our students will be operating in a

Agida Manizade Editor in Chief, Virginia Mathematics Teacher vmt@radford.edu

Congratulations to the 2017 Winners of the William C. Lowry Mathematics Educator Award:

Middle School Awardee: Matthew Reames, Burgundy Farm High School Awardee: Jillian Marballie, Mongomery County

College Awardee: Andrew Wynn, Virginia State University Math Specialists Awardee: Tasha Fitzgerald, Culpeper Schools

Virginia Mathematics Teacher vol. 43, no. 2

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