The Possibility of Modelling as a Creativity-Demanding Activity: The Perspective of Teachers’ Professional Development

This chapter addresses pre-service teachers’ professional competencies for teaching modelling as a creativity-demanding activity. Based on previous studies, we examined the performance of 71 pre-service mathematics teachers in China on three modelling tasks. After receiving training in teaching modelling, their professional competencies were tested. The participants appeared to perform well on aspects of creativity, such as fluency. However, the relationships between aspects of modelling competencies incorporating creativity differed from those found in previous studies. Participants did not perform well on modelling-specific pedagogical content knowledge. Moreover, few significant correlations were found between modelling competencies incorporating creativity and modelling-specific pedagogical content knowledge.