Building Awareness of Mathematical Modelling in Teacher Education: A Case Study in Indonesia

Abstract

Interest to teach mathematics closely connected to its use in daily life has grown in Indonesia for over the last decade (Sembiring RK, Hadi S, Dolk M, ZDM – Int J Math Educ 40(6):927–939, 2008). This chapter reports an exploratory case study of the building of an awareness of mathematical modelling in teacher education in Indonesia. A modelling task, Re-designing a Parking Lot (Ang KC, Mathematical modelling in the secondary and junior college classroom. Prentice Hall, Singapore, 2009), was assigned to groups of pre-service secondary mathematics teachers. All groups collected data on a parking lot, identified limitations in the current design, and proposed a new design based on observations and analyses. The nature of the mathematical models elicited during the modelling task were examined. Implications of this study suggest a need to encourage pre-service teachers to state assumptions and real-world considerations and link them to the mathematical model in order to validate if the model is appropriate and useful.