Most teachers use lecture method frequently, giving the students little chances for more interaction, discovery approaches, team efforts, and experimentation in the classroom and relying on traditional mathematics textbooks which mostly provide single and straightforward solution problems at which students only apply a ready-made formula to reach a solution. This leads the students to believe the subject mathematics as a mere transmission of resolution techniques, being rather than a tool in another area of knowledge.    On the contrary, students working on modeling activities focus on analyzing a problematic situation, setting and testing conjectures and model construction. This paper describes the main implications of modeling in the teaching of mathematics by designing and conducting a short teaching intervention via model-eliciting activities. The data was collected through class observation, review of textbook, questionnaires, interviews, and students’ final reports detailing the processes used in developing the model for the model-eliciting activities. The analysis of the data revealed the following results: the participating students were able to work effectively with model-eliciting activities that enable them to discover the meaning of the mathematical concepts, few modeling tasks were incorporated in the textbook, students’ report showed that their prior experience gained from the first modeling activity helped them to develop a better model and interpret the solutions back to reality, and teachers and students believed that teaching and learning via model-eliciting activities could improve the teaching-learning of mathematics.

mathematical model, model-eliciting activities, traditional word problem.