​​Four questions with Stephen Szydlik, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh

• What is special about your GeT course? My GeT course is axioms-based, but I blend the rigorous mathematics with opportunities for exploration and active learning. I try to give my students opportunities to model authentic mathematical behaviors: investigation, conjecture, counterexample and logical argument. I emphasize proof, but we spend lots of time working with the hyperbolic models, especially using dynamic geometry software.
• Who are your students? The students in my GeT course are almost entirely preservice secondary teachers. Most come from within Wisconsin, and many have never been outside the state. I try to encourage them to travel whenever possible, and just as stepping outside their culture provides them with a unique perspective on their homes, so too does our investigation of hyperbolic geometry offer new insights into the Euclidean geometry that they will teach. (At least that’s my goal!)
• What are you most interested in learning/achieving through participating with the GeT: A Pencil community? I’ve already learned so much from the GeT: A Pencil community about the many different ways of structuring a GeT course! I am most interested in learning how well we prepare our future teachers and if there are ways that we can better serve them.
• What is your favorite book you have read recently? I just finished Fredrik Backman’s novel Us Against You. At its most basic level, it’s a story of an economically depressed northern town struggling to heal after an act of violence. The characters are complicated and richly drawn, and the story, centered around the reemergence of the town’s hockey team, is riveting and emotional. It was a rewarding read!