Creative Thinking Through Mathematics: A Student's Guide to Mathematical Explorations

This book engages students in interactive explorations that encourage creative thinking in their approaches to mathematics. Organized around five themes, the fifteen quests invite students to notice, wonder, and draw upon their mathematical reasoning as they connect mathematics to other disciplines and everyday situations. The quests foster students’ creativity by posing open-ended questions, encouraging reflection, inviting playfulness and curiosity, and connecting to research-based traits of creativity. The authors broaden the notion of what it means to be a mathematical thinker, provide access to mathematics through creative thinking, and celebrate the idea that everyone has the capacity to explore mathematics. Each chapter concludes with a project idea that encourages students to personalize their learning around the chapter’s theme. Accompanying worksheets and other resources are also available online. This book is written for undergraduate students, including preservice teachers, and is suitable as a textbook for general education mathematics courses. It can also be used within teacher professional learning communities and professional development programs as a supplement for more specialized mathematics education courses, or anywhere there is interest in approaching mathematics creatively.

Mika Munakata is Professor of Mathematics Education at Montclair State University, New Jersey. She teaches mathematics, research, and pedagogy courses to preservice and in-service mathematics teachers as well as mathematics courses for non-STEM majors.

Eliza Leszczyński is Assistant Teaching Professor at Montclair State University, New Jersey. She teaches mathematics courses for STEM majors, general education mathematics courses, and mathematics education courses for preservice teachers.