What Is ‘Authentic’ in the Teaching and Learning of Mathematical Modelling? Trends in Teaching and Learning of Mathematical Modelling

There are different perspectives on the use of the adjective ‘authentic’ (c.q. the noun ‘authenticity’) in the teaching and learning of mathematics, and in particular in mathematical modelling. Researchers use a variety of meanings, describing authentic tasks, authentic situations, authentic learning environments, authentic models, and so forth. On the one hand, authenticity refers to being genuine (true, honest); on the other hand, authenticity refers to properties of simulations (copies) of out-of-school aspects. I use a framework from sociology to describe authenticity as a social construct, pointing at a number of definition problems. I will propose a pragmatic resolution to these problems with a pragmatic definition of authenticity for separate aspects in tasks (themes, resources, activities) if these are “clearly not created for educational purposes”.