Teaching Mathematics Through Problem Modelling and Solving

The teaching of mathematics in high school and university and its relationship with problem modelling and solving is at the centre of debate in many countries, with a rich scientific literature. The theme has to be viewed in a broader framework. The definition of educational chain is preliminary given, starting from the content of a discipline and covering teaching strategies, forms of learning, evaluation and assessment. On this basis the mathematical language and the role of mathematics is discussed. Then the experience of OPS4Math (Optimization and Problem Solving for Teaching of Mathematics), a training project developed at Federico II University of Naples and aimed at high school teachers, is described, including motivations and objectives, and implementation phases. Finally, the proposed teaching strategy is presented through a classical optimization problem.