PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS' MODELLING PROCESSES THROUGH ENGAGEMENT WITH MODEL ELICITING ACTIVITIES WITH A TECHNOLOGICAL TOOL

Engaging mathematics students with modelling activities helps them learn mathematics meaningfully. This engagement, in the case of model eliciting activities, helps the students elicit mathematical models by interpreting real-world situation in mathematical ways. This is especially true when the students utilize technology to build the models. Researchers have been interested in the phases of modelling processes that students go through when engaging with modelling activities, where looking at these phases from a cognitive aspect gives us insight regarding students' processes of mathematizing real situation. This was the goal of this research, specifically when middle school pre-service teachers use technology in model eliciting activities. Six groups of pre-service teachers participated in the research engaging in modelling the "summer reading activity." Three different cycles of modelling processes were identified, differing in the phase of technology use and in its role in building the models. This variability in pre-service teachers' utilization of technology, in our case the spreadsheets, imply that the technology which is appropriate for a specific modelling activity could be a flexible tool used by the learners to mathematize the real-life situation expressed in the activity.