Geometric Structures: An Inquiry-Based Approach for Prospective Elementary and Middle School Teachers

For prospective elementary and middle school teachers.

This text provides a creative, inquiry-based experience with geometry that is appropriate for prospective elementary and middle school teachers.  The coherent series of text activities supports each student’s growth toward being a confident, independent learner empowered with the help of peers to make sense of the geometric world. This curriculum is explicitly developed to provide future elementary and middle school teachers with

• experience recalling and appropriately using standard geometry ideas,
• experience learning and making sense of new geometry,
• experience discussing geometry with peers,
• experience asking questions about geometry,
• experience listening and understanding as others talk about geometry,
• experience gaining meaning from reading geometry,
• experience expressing geometry ideas through writing,
• experience thinking about geometry, and
• experience doing geometry.

These activities constitute an “inquiry based” curriculum.  In this style of learning and teaching, whole class discussions and group work replace listening to lectures as the dominant class activity.

John Wolfe, Oklahoma State University: John recently was promoted to professor emeritus at Oklahoma State University. After graduating from the University of California at Berkeley in 1971 he was active in mathematics research including several publications and National Science Foundation research grants in Banach Space Theory. His enthusiasm for teaching has been recognized by awards from both the Mathematical Association of America and the Regents of Oklahoma State University. Over the past several years educational issues with a special passion for geometry have been the focus of his professional life. Woodworking, travel, camping and grandkids are becoming increasingly important in his life.

Douglas B. Aichele, Oklahoma State University: Douglas grew up in Great Neck, NY. He received his undergraduate and graduate education in mathematics at the University of Missouri-Columbia. He has been a faculty member at Oklahoma State University for many years and was appointed Regents Professor in 1989. He is currently serving as Associate Head of the Department of Mathematics. Good teaching of mathematics has always been important to him and he has been recognized over the years by such institutions/organizations as the OSU Blue Key Alumni Association, Mathematical Association of America, and the University of Missouri-Columbia.His other interests reside mainly in the outdoors - particularly spending time with his family in the mountains of Colorado at a log cabin that he built by hand. He is an avid backpacker and hiker; he has climbed most of Colorado's Fourteeners (mountains with elevations greater then 14,000 ft.) and several mountains and glaciers near Juneau, Alaska.