James and Mary Ross Provost's Award for Excellence

Megan Wickstrom

Megan Wickstrom has received the James and Mary Ross Provost’s Award for Excellence, which recognizes outstanding teaching and scholarship with an emphasis on first-year, second-year and core courses. The award carries a $2,500 honorarium and is sponsored by James and Mary Ross and the Office of Academic Affairs.

Wickstrom is an associate professor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences in the College of Letters and Science. Since 2014, she has taught MSU mathematics education students how to develop mathematical models to solve real-world problems, a technique that challenges them to look at math differently and provides them with a new teaching tool to incorporate in their own classrooms after they graduate.

Because elementary education majors often enter their required mathematics courses feeling that they don’t belong, Wickstrom has designed her courses to foster community, connection and joy when doing mathematics. Implementing mathematical modeling activities is one aspect of her teaching that helps students apply what they learn in meaningful ways and build their mathematical agency. In nominating Wickstrom for the award, department head Beth Burroughs said students enjoy her courses and consistently report that lessons and projects are engaging, meaningful and effective.

In the past five years, Wickstrom has published three books and two book chapters, as well as nine articles in top journals in the field of mathematics education. She was the principal investigator of a National Science Foundation-funded project from 2019 to 2024 and has given many talks about that work. Wickstrom has received multiple local and national awards recognizing her excellence in teaching, including an MSU Provost’s Teaching Innovation Award in 2019 and an Early Career Award from the Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators in 2023.