Linking mathematics and biology education by mathematical modeling – an in-service teacher training

Sixty eight upper secondary teachers in mathematics and biology
respectively, and three scientific staff members from Laboratory of Coherent
teaching and Learning participated in the one-year professional development
program “MathBio in the study package”. The overall aim of the program
was to enable the teachers to implement interdisciplinary teaching sequences
in mathematics and biology in their daily classroom practices. It was the core
idea of the program to involve teachers in design, implementation, and
evaluation of innovative teaching sequences dealing with a wide range of
aspects of mathematics and biology. During the program the teachers shared
their didactical reflections, and other issues relevant for the development of
the interdisciplinary teaching sequences on Padlets. Based on analysis of the
Padlets we report about the teachers’ views of the challenges, limitations and
potentials of interdisciplinary modeling activities between mathematics and
biology. The experience from the program is that the teachers creatively
explore and forge interdisciplinary relationships between mathematics and
biology, but that curriculum, time, missing support from the school
management and knowledge of the other discipline are obstacles to
interdisciplinary teaching