Category: Education

Woodcut image depicting Thomas Murner as a robed cat.

Gamification: Thomas Murner Makes Learning Fun

July 26, 2023

An early proponent of gamification, the Franciscan preacher and satirist, Thomas Murner (1475-1537), used card games as pedagogical tools. The Rare Book and Special Collections Division has a copy of one of his logic card games, Logica memorativa: chartiludium logice, sive totius dialectice memoria (Strasburg, 1509).

Posted in: 16th Century, Education, Manuscript and Letterpress (Hand Press)

Woodcut image of a human head with lines extending from the tongue, eyes, ears, and nose into a common point beneath the forehead.

The Other Common Sense, or, Why Your Student Isn’t a Cabbage

June 16, 2023

Posted by: Marianna Stell

This post introduces readers to a once popular but now obsolete use of the term "common sense," as it is presented in Gregor Reisch (1467-1525)'s enormously popular text book, Margarita Philosophica, first printed in 1503.

Posted in: Education, History of Science, Manuscript and Letterpress (Hand Press)