Making Relevance Relevant in Mathematics Teacher Education

One of the features of the reform in school mathematics is that school mathematics should be made relevant to the learners. The incorporation of mathematical modelling in school mathematics is one of the ways that is offered to realise the relevance ideal. Ostensibly the inclusion of mathematical modelling will provide school learners opportunities to develop mathematical power i.e. the ability to make sense of the world and of mathematics. A key question in this regard is: How prepared are practising mathematics teachers to incorporate mathematical modelling in their teaching? This preparedness entails that mathematics teachers be knowledgeable with mathematical modelling as content. In this paper this mathematical modelling content is elaborated upon and reports on a study which investigated secondary mathematics teachers’ knowledge of mathematical modelling as content in South Africa and Eritrea. The one major finding of this study is that these teachers deem their experience with mathematical modelling as motivational and that they do find mathematical modelling problems dealing with social issues relevant. The second major finding is that in developing mathematical models for social issues teachers utilise very low levels of mathematics which is in essence against the intention of school mathematics reform. It is argued that this disjuncture—the engagement with low level mathematics and the personal expression and experiencing of the modelling as motivational and relevant—that requires attention in mathematics teacher education programmes aimed at assisting teachers to realise the relevance ideal in their teaching. These programmes, it is suggested, should not restrict the mathematical content knowledge to concepts, facts, procedures and proofs but it should also include mathematical modelling as content and at a minimum this would mean that teachers have to experience all the components of the mathematical modelling process.