Abstract
Creativity has been identified as a key characteristic that allows students to adapt smoothly to rapid societal and economic changes in the real world. However, Chinese students appear to perform less well in mathematical problem-solving and problem-posing abilities, which are strongly connected to mathematical creativity. Mathematical modelling has recently been introduced as one of the six core competencies in the Chinese mathematical curriculum and is built on students’ ability to solve real-world problems using mathematical means. As mathematical modelling is characterised by openness regarding the understanding of complex real-world problems and the complex relationship between the real world and mathematics, for the strengthening of creativity, mathematical modelling activities seem to be adequate to accomplish this purpose. In this paper, we describe a study with 71 upper secondary school students, 50 pre-service mathematics teachers, and 66 in-service mathematics teachers, based on an extended didactical framework regarding mathematical modelling as a creativity-demanding activity. The results of the study indicate a significant correlation between modelling competencies and creativity aspects. Especially significant correlations between the adequacy of the modelling approaches and the two creativity aspects of usefulness and fluency could be identified, as well as a significant negative correlation between usefulness and originality. The results of the correlational analysis of relationships among the four criteria were not always consistent in the three participant groups. Overall, the results have implications for the promotion of creativity for various expertise groups and demonstrate the dependency of the modelling activities on the mathematical knowledge of the participants and the mathematical topic with which they are dealing.
Highlights
Amid recent dramatic changes in work and life, organisations worldwide have independently developed the framework of twenty-first-century skills to promote education for responsible citizenship, and twenty-first-century learning has been advocated for in many national curricula (Binkley et al, 2012)
Departing from the important role of mathematical modelling, which is emphasised in the recent national curricular standards for upper secondary school mathematics in China (MOE, 2018), in this study we aim to investigate the possibility of combining creativity and mathematical modelling to promote the development of twenty-first-century skills in the teaching and learning of mathematics within the context of Chinese education and beyond
Data were collected from 50 pre-services teachers who were majoring in mathematics (Group 2) and 66 in-service mathematics teachers (Group 3) in addition to 71 upper secondary school students (Group 1)
Summary
Amid recent dramatic changes in work and life, organisations worldwide have independently developed the framework of twenty-first-century skills to promote education for responsible citizenship, and twenty-first-century learning has been advocated for in many national curricula (Binkley et al, 2012). Teachers play a central role in promoting student-centred learning (Leikin & Elgrably, 2020); effective teacher education programmes and supports for early-career. Lee (2017) highlighted the importance of promoting teachers’ profound mathematical knowledge, their competence in designing or modifying tasks to develop creativity, awareness, and positive dispositions toward creativity education, and the potential to combine teaching creativity and creative skills. The Ministry of Education of China emphasises the necessity of establishing a high-quality, professional, and creative teacher team (MOE, 2020), which requires that teacher education should go beyond establishing knowledge bases, in order to focus on creativity, such as by creative uses of new educational theoretical frameworks (Leikin & Elgrably, 2020)
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