Jen Szydlik

Jen Szydlik has twenty years of experience working with preservice and practicing elementary and middle grades teachers. As an instructor, she shows her students the nature of mathematics; she helps them become skilled and enthusiastic problem-solvers; she supports them in understanding mathematical content; and she helps them become effective communicators of mathematical ideas. Through her research she investigates how students view mathematics and mathematics learning, and how they can be nurtured to adopt more powerful beliefs about mathematical behavior. Jen’s has won several teaching awards including the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh Distinguished Teaching Award and Wisconsin’s Mathematical Association of America Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics. Along with her colleagues Eric Kuennen, John Beam, and Carol Seaman, she is currently working on a series of activity-based mathematics texts for future teachers.

Jen has two boys (a third-grader and a fifth-grader), a mathematician husband, and a creaky old house. She loves to write trashy novels, play cards, sing Karaoke, and dig in the garden.