Authentic Complex Modelling Problems in Mathematics Education

Abstract

Currently mathematical modelling has become more and more important at all levels of education. Students as well as teachers are engaged in dealing with real life problems where the mathematical content and the mathematical methods are anything but clear at a first glance. These kinds of problems play a major role in many interdisciplinary activities and provide a successful tool to sensitise students to mathematical issues and have the potential to give students insight into the relevance of mathematics in the real world. Since modelling with students has a long tradition at several German universities, we reflect in this chapter our experiences in conducting modelling activities with students especially at secondary level and describe how these activities were implemented. We elaborate the established approach of dealing with authentic and complex modelling examples and give insight into the evaluation of these activities over the last three years.