An analysis of the relation between real world modelling and the teaching of mathematical modelling

DidMat seminar with Britta Jessen and Tinne Hoff Kjeldsen

Abstract

Mathematical modelling has entered the curriculum at various levels of education in many countries, including Denmark. In this talk, we consider the relation between mathematical modelling activities carried out in professional and scientific contexts, and at upper secondary level in Denmark. The former are often used as a motivation for mathematics as a discipline at upper secondary level, but can this be sustained if we look at the practices in the institutional settings? To investigate this question, we construct an epistemological reference model describing the didactic transposition of the notion mathematical modelling from scholarly knowledge to teaching at upper secondary level. For the scholarly knowledge we apply a history of mathematics viewpoint in order to study the emergence of the notion of mathematical modelling. Our analysis points out that in scientific modelling, the negotiation of knowledge to be brought into the model is crucial and is crucial to new insights within research fields and across them, whereas this element is not present in school modelling. We discuss if this is a problem and how the negotiation of knowledge sources can be brought into the teaching of mathematical modelling.