ABSTRACT
Most college-intending students spend at least one year beyond algebra developing the algebraic skills and understandings required by trigonometry, analytic geometry, calculus, and statistics. The emerging capabilities of calculators, computers, and other electronic information processing technology suggest revolutionary changes in the goals and teaching of algebra. The ability to make the translations is particularly useful where mathematical methods are applied to situations involving quantitative principles of science or well-known formulas from domains like geometry or the mathematics of finance. The availability of computer-based modeling tools permits extension of algebraic methods to quantitative situations in which no existing formula relates the variables. The variety of business and scientific spreadsheets, some with powerful underlying algebra processors, offer effective levers on multivariable problems in which the relations are not restricted to linear conditions. The agenda for high school algebra is overloaded with ideas and skills that prove difficult for many students.
