Using Mathematics Modelling to Teach Mathematics Word Problems

Abstract

The shift of curriculum from non-contextualized to contextualized mathematics has called schools to focus more on competency based items. The real world word problem has made teaching and learning mathematics more open and less predictable hindering the performances of students. Therefore, the intervention research was conducted with 51 students of class VI of Choekhorling Lower Secondary School, Sarpang, Bhutan to address the difficulties in solving word problems in mathematics. The mathematical modelling was used as an intervention for a period of 10 weeks to narrow the gap between mathematical and real world problems. The study concluded that comprehending the problem and translating real world problem to mathematical problem were the main causes of difficulties in solving competency based items by the participants. Moreover, there was mean difference in pre-intervention and post intervention scores (p<0.001) which indicated statistically significant to ascertain that mathematical modeling can help students’ mathematical leaning become more meaningful and teachers can obtain the patterns of students’ problem-solving competence.