Abstract:

This paper reports on the professional development of Mathematics student teachers, who were involved in a well-thought-out mathematical modelling intervention over a number of weeks. The overarching goal of the research is to deduce curricular guidelines aimed at the effective teaching and learning of mathematical modelling.

South Africa’s latest Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement for Mathematics in Grades 10 to 12 incorporated mathematical modelling as a central theme in 2011. This suggests modelling as a pedagogy to investigate and solve real-world problems in a variety of contexts (for example health, social, economic, cultural, scientific, political, environmental, and others). The range of problems are open-ended and non-routine and require a variety of modelling competencies from Mathematics school students. The development of these competencies (related to concepts, skills, processes, attitudes and metacognition) seems ideal to meet the challenges of the 21st century.

Modelling as pedagogy might enhance the competencies of school students, but it depends largely on their teachers. Local and international research reports confirm the challenges of mathematics teachers in teaching modelling, particularly in developing countries. These teachers are expected to adapt a modelling pedagogy and cultivate a climate conducive towards mathematical modelling in their classrooms. Ideally, Mathematics student teachers should be exposed to modelling tasks during their formal education on a regular basis, through taking part as modellers themselves and teachers of modelling. Therefore, the obligation lies with teacher education programmes to prepare student teachers adequately for this pedagogy.

Participants, in ten comparable groups, were exposed to a sequence of modelling activities (as modellers and teachers of modelling), and arranged according to two iterations. Quantitate data were collected through the reliable Attitudes Towards Mathematical Modelling Inventory (ATMMI), at the end of each iteration. The Statistical Software Package for the social sciences (SPSS, version 24) was used to analyse the data. A reflective analysis and evaluation of data (only considering comparative cases) revealed an increase in attitudinal scores with relation to four sub-scales, enjoyment, value, self-confidence and motivation. These, and other results provide insight on how student teachers experienced the mathematical modelling intervention and ultimately its effectiveness in preparing student teachers of a modelling pedagogy.

Keywords:

Mathematics student teachers, professional development of teachers, mathematical modelling, modelling pedagogy.