Investigating Pre-service Teachers’ Experiences with the “A4 Paper Format” Modelling Task

Our research question asks what kinds of educational effects are gained for a group of pre-service mathematics teachers when we address the A4 paper format task from the perspective that mathematical modelling can be used to enrich students’ knowledge both in the real world and in mathematics. Around 60% of the pre-service teachers perceived that they could enrich their knowledge both in the real world and in mathematics, while around 30% were able to anticipate connections to their actual teaching in future. This suggests that pre-service teachers are able to appreciate these dual aims of modelling, that is, modelling can not only enrich students’ ability to solve real-world problems but also deepen their ability to develop further mathematics.