Beyond motivation: Exploring mathematical modeling as a context for deepening students' understandings of curricular mathematics

Rose Mary Zbiek, Annamarie Conner

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

75 Scopus citations

Abstract

Views of mathematical modeling in empirical, expository, and curricular references typically capture a relationship between real-world phenomena and mathematical ideas from the perspective that competence in mathematical modeling is a clear goal of the mathematics curriculum. However, we work within a curricular context in which mathematical modeling is treated more as a venue for learning other mathematics than as an instructional goal in its own right. From this perspective, we are compelled to ask how learning of mathematics beyond modeling may occur as students generate and validate mathematical models. We consider a diagrammatic model of mathematical modeling as a process that allows us to identify how mathematical understandings may develop or surface while learners engage in modeling tasks. Through examples from prospective teachers' mathematical modeling work, we illustrate how our diagrammatic model serves as a tool to unpack the intricacies of students' mathematical experience while engaging in modeling tasks.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)89-112
Number of pages24
JournalEducational Studies in Mathematics
Volume63
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 2006

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Education
  • General Mathematics

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Beyond motivation: Exploring mathematical modeling as a context for deepening students' understandings of curricular mathematics'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this