Abstract: In the search for an effective approach to make mathematics education relevant, interesting and beneficial to students, mathematical modelling has emerged as an approach that has the potential to enhance students’ mathematical thinking in a creative manner. While this may be so, it is important that teachers be adequately prepared so that they too have the experience doing mathematical modelling themselves. This paper discusses an attempt by a group of teachers who were undergoing an in-service course to model a simple knot. The three emergent themes arising from the case study were (1) the experience of creative and collaborative problem solving, (2) learning mathematics through mathematical discourse, and (3) the concern for time in the modelling process.

Key words: Mathematical thinking; Teacher education; Mathematical modelling; Problem solving