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Teaching Mathematics Relevant to Our Students:

Note from the Editors Dr. Agida Manizade and Dr. Jean Mistele

During our vulnerable times, the focuses of this is sue is on teaching mathematics most relevant to our students. Our goal as educators is to continuously deliver high - quality instruction to our students. The challenge in mathematics education is that we as a community define “ good ” teaching and quality instruction in mathematics classrooms differently. In a high - stakes testing environment, mathematics teaching is considered “ good ” if particular learning outcomes, or test scores, are presented by students. On another hand, quality of mathematics instruc tion could be tied to the type of activities students engage with in their classrooms. These learning ex

periences—if relevant to students, appropriate for their backgrounds, and designed to engage them in rigorous thinking about challenging mathematics content—can constitute the definition of “ good ” mathematics teaching. Two good examples of this definition of a quality mathematics classroom are presented first in the article by Ferguson et al., ti tled “ PBL, Slopes, and Lines in Stained Glass, ” and next by Dawn Hakkenberg and Diana Fisher ti tled “ How to Keep Students from Falling Off the Slope. ” In these pieces, two teams of authors dis cuss hands - on, real - life activities in which students engaged during a lesson on slope. In another article by John Adam titled “ What ’ s Your Sphericity In-

Virginia Mathematics Teacher vol. 46, no. 2

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