Now in its eighth edition, this text masterfully integrates skills, concepts, and activities to motivate learning. It emphasises the relevance of mathematics to help students learn the importance of the information being covered. This approach ensures that they develop a sold mathematics foundation and discover how to apply the content in the real world.
Gary L. Musser is currently Professor Emeritus from Oregon State University. He earned both his B.S. in Mathematics Education in 1961 and his M.S. in Mathematics in 1963 at the University of Miami in Florida. He taught at the junior and senior high, junior college, college, and university levels for more than 30 years. He served his last 24 years teaching prospective teachers in the Department of Mathematics at Oregon State University. While at OSU, Dr. Musser developed the mathematics component of the elementary teacher program. Soon after Professor William F. Burger joined the OSU Department of Mathematics in a similar capacity, the two of them began to write the first edition of this book. Professor Burger passed away during the preparation of the second edition, and later Professor Blake E. Peterson was hired at OSU. Professor Peterson joined Professor Musser as a coauthor beginning with the fifth edition. Professor Musser has published 40 papers in many journals, including the Pacific Journal of Mathematics, Canadian Journal of Mathematics, The Mathematics Association of America Monthly, the NCTM's The Mathematics Teacher, the NCTM's The Arithmetic Teacher, School Science and Mathematics, The Oregon Mathematics Teacher, and the Computing Teacher. In addition, he is a coauthor of two other college mathematics Books: College Geometry- A Problem-Solving Approach with Applications and Mathematics in Life, Society, and the World. He also coauthored the K-8 series Mathematics in Action. He has given more than 64 invited lectures/workshops at a variety of conferences, including NCTM and MAA conferences, and was awarded 15 federal, state, and local grants to improve the teaching ofmathematics.
While Professor Musser was at OSU, he was awarded the university's prestigious College of Science Carter Award for Teaching. he is currently living in sunny Las Vegas, where he continues to write, ponder the mysteries of the stock market, entertain his faithful yellow lab, Zoey, and enjoy watching his granddaughter blossom into a young lady.
Blake E. Peterson is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematics Education at Brigham Young University. He was born and raised in Logan, Utah, where he graduated from Logan High School. Before completing his BA in secondary mathematics education at Utah State University, he spent two years in Japan as a missionary for the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. After graduation, he took his new wife, Shauna, to southern California, where he taught and coached at Chino High School for two years. In 1988, he began graduate school at Washington State University, where he later completed an M.S. and Ph.D. in pure mathematics.
After completing his Ph.D., Dr. Peterson was hired as a mathematics educator in the Department of Mathematics at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon, where he taught for three years. It was at OSU that he met Gary Musser. He has since moved his wife and four children to Provo, Utah, to assume his position at Brigham Young University. As a professor, his first love is teaching, for which he has received a College Teaching he Award in the College of Science. He has also designed the "Mathematics Teaching with Technology" and "Mathematics Methods" courses at Brigham Young University.
Dr. Peterson has published papers in Rocky Mountain Mathematics Journal, The AmericanMathematical Monthly, The Mathematical Gazette, and Mathematics magazine, as well as NCTM's mathematics Teacher and Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School. His current research interests are the mathematical dialogue that occurs during teacher collaborations. This research recently took him back to Japan where he studied mathematics student teachers at a Japanese junior high school. In addition to teaching, research, and writing, Dr. Peterson has done consulting for the College Board, founded the Utah Association of mathematics Teacher Educators, is an associate chair of the department of mathematics education at BYU.
Aside from his academic interests, Dr. Peterson enjoys spending time with his family, playing basketball, mountain biking, water skiing, and working in the yard.
