Authenticity in Preservice Teacher-Designed Modelling Tasks

Authenticity is a fragmented concept in mathematics education. What we can learn from studying how preservice teachers relate to authenticity is therefore important. We investigated how preservice teachers in a mathematics education class embedded authenticity in modelling tasks they designed for secondary school students. Our results showed that the groups were proficient in relating the modelling problems to contextual stories and out-of-school events that could potentially be authentic for students. They related their tasks to what could have been lived experiences, touchable elements, current topics, and personal interests for students. Compared to scientifically authentic modelling processes, the work processes that the tasks facilitated sometimes lacked important characteristics. For example, they did not always build on combinations of mathematical ideas and methods.