Teaching Modelling and Systemic Change

In this chapter, we set out our views, based on over 30 years of experience, on two related areas: methods and challenges in teaching students the strategies and skills needed to model real problems using mathematics, and approaches to helping education systems make this happen in the classrooms for which they are responsible. We believe that substantial progress has been made with the first of these but much less with the second. We use examples from a sequence of modelling projects to illustrate design principles that we have found powerful for materials to support teaching and professional development. We then discuss barriers in school systems to the implementation of important improvements like modelling, and how they might be tackled.