RUME 28
2026
Alexandria, Virginia
Analysis of the Conditions and Constraints Shaping a Modelling-Based Course of Life Sciences
Page: 1476
A persistent goal in mathematics education at the undergraduate level is improving the calculus experience for non-mathematics majors. Recent calls from disciplinary experts in the life sciences have expressed the importance of mathematics to biology (Steen, 2005). Many institutions have responded by offering a course like biocalculus, where calculus concepts are shown to apply to examples from biology. However, the content is not meeting the needs of life scientists (Cozzens & Roberts, 2020, p. 87). In this study, we consider a modeling-first approach to mathematics, developed specifically for life science majors, which we take to be the result of a didactic transposition of quantitative biology into an introductory course (Bosch et al., 2021). Using the developer’s retrospective account of conceiving and implementing the course, we report on an analysis of the conditions and circumstances that shaped its creation.