Work in progress — Engineering a context-based college algebra course

An apparent trend in university mathematics courses is that students approach mathematical problems methodically without understanding the context. A large contributor to this trend is the lack of true connections with real applications in most college-level algebra courses. For those students pursuing a STEM degree, this disconnect is often perpetuated in later courses in their major. Evidence suggests redesigning College Algebra content to become more context-based could promote a deeper understanding and eliminate the disconnect between fundamentals and applications. Developing the course would involve a structural redesign, creating a different flow of topics while simultaneously relating them to real applications.