Pre-service teachers’ challenges in implementing mathematical modelling: Insights into reality

Abstract

Modelling has become mandatory in the school curricula in many countries across the globe, often without providing teachers the training needed to address this challenge. With a qualitative case study, we analyzed the tasks designed by secondary mathematics pre-service teachers. We recognized how participants manage their knowledge for teaching modelling in the absence of training. Elements of knowledge for teaching such as translation between languages, recognizing unknown data, covariation, and usefulness of representations for understanding and solving problems, were identified. Our results also reveal that future teachers have a tendency to create word problems when first attempting to teach modelling.