Archives and Special Collections is pleased to announce the opening of its spring 2011 exhibit, “Learning through Dictation: Elementary Mathematics Problems in the 18th and 19th Centuries.”
In the late seventeenth and early nineteenth centuries, arithmetic was taught through a set of rules that could be used in solving problems. Commercial topics and vocational applications were predominant. Instructors taught by dictation. They presented the rules along with examples and practice problems.
This exhibit features copy books and text books for both instructors and students from the Artemas Martin and Karen D. Michalowicz Collections. The copy books on display span over eighty years and illustrate the method of teaching over this period.