Platonic Rhetoric in Distance Learning: How Robert Record Taught the Home Learner.
John Fauvel · for the learning of mathematics · 1989
When we talk about learning mathematics we generally have an image of a face-to-face classroom situation. And of course the classroom is an arena for mathematics education where historical inputs can play several important roles. But face-to-face in a classroom is not the universal pattern. For many people the learning of mathematics is done at a distance from the source of instruction, far from any teacher, either through studying textbooks, or following planned courses using print and other media such as cassettes and videos. How the student learns to use and benefit from such material is one meta-question which arises, and another is how the teacher learns to prepare material suitable for distance learners in the first place. My aim in this paper is to see what can be learned from the past about communication at a distance in the teaching of mathematics, through studying the practice of one very skilful teacher, the sixteenth century textbook writer Robert Record.