Calculating Aids in Mathematics Education Before the Advent of Electronic Calculators: Didactical and Technological Prospects

Abstract

This chapter presents a synopsis of ideas, movements, and reforms that influenced education in the twentieth century before the electronic calculators started being routinely used in mathematics classrooms around the world. This was an era of rapid industrialization which required efficient skilling of the population; the new approaches to how mathematics is taught and learnt were influenced by the succession of psychological theories and technological innovations. Along the way, some didactical and technological approaches were abandoned, while others kept reappearing, although altered. The readers are introduced to selected technological innovations of the period (e.g., teaching machines, thinking machines, and calculating/computing machines), along with the questions, expectations, and disappointments they gave rise to.