Mm: Mathetics

The science of learning. The term was coined by John Amos Comenius (1592-1670) in his work Spicilegium didacticum, published in 1680. He understood Mathetics as the opposite of Didactics, the science of teaching. Mathetics considers and uses findings of current interest from pedagogical psychology, neurophysiology and information technology.

Seymour Papert, MIT mathematician, educator, and author, explains the rationale behind the term mathetics in Chapter 5 (A Word for Learning) of his book, The Children's Machine. The origin of the word, according to Papert, is not from "mathematics," but from the Greek, mathēmatikos, which means disposed to learn. This word (or one like it) should become as much part of the vocabularly about education as is the word pedagogy or instructional design