Modeling Cycle and GenAI as Resources for Mathematics Teachers’ Professional Development

This study stems from the need to investigate how GenAI tools, particularly ChatGPT-4o, can support the professional development of mathematics teachers. It explores how Blum’s modeling cycle can serve as a conceptual and operational framework for mathematics teachers’ instructional design when supported by ChatGPT-4o. Drawing on a qualitative case study within a teacher professional development program, the research analyzes how two upper secondary school teachers engaged with ChatGPT-4o to redesign a mathematical task involving probability and real-world contexts. Data include responses to three modeling-related tasks, teachers’ prompts and interactions with ChatGPT-4o, and the final mathematical activity they designed. These materials were analyzed qualitatively according to the modeling cycle and its sub-competencies. The results indicate that the modeling cycle provided teachers with a cognitive and methodological scaffold to guide their interaction with ChatGPT-4o, allowing them to structure, validate, and refine AI-generated ideas through all stages of modeling—from understanding and mathematizing to interpreting and validating. These findings suggest that the modeling cycle can be reinterpreted as a design-oriented framework for integrating ChatGPT-4o in mathematics teacher education. Implications for teacher professional development and future research directions are discussed.