Why Logo?


Students “drive;” teachers help them navigate and understand

Focused, inten­tion­al prac­tice is nec­es­sary to build the skills need­ed to accu­rate­ly gen­er­ate math­e­mat­i­cal syn­tax and put it togeth­er with rules for math­e­mat­i­cal con­cepts and log­i­cal oper­a­tions. This is a fact that math teach­ers have intoned to their stu­dents for­ev­er. But inten­tion­al, dis­ci­plined prac­tice requires strong initiative—desire to put forth the effort. Voli­tion, as it is called else­where in this site.

Ear­ly advo­cates of Logo use in schools often rec­om­mend­ed min­i­mal direc­tion for learn­ers, allow­ing them to dis­cov­er for them­selves big math­e­mat­i­cal ideas. Research has not shown this to be effec­tive in devel­op­ing math­e­mat­i­cal knowl­edge or the Logo lan­guage itself. While Logo seems to nat­u­ral­ly draw stu­dents to inves­ti­gate, inter­est wanes when struc­ture is lack­ing. So, yes, effec­tive teach­ing and learn­ing requires structure.

But, why Logo now?

From the stu­dents’ view, two key sources of ini­tia­tive are feel­ings of increased intel­lec­tu­al prowess (which increas­es social sta­tus and self-sat­is­fac­tion) and high lev­el of con­trol over one’s learn­ing. Per­son­al con­trol over one’s infor­ma­tion sources (in gen­er­al, one’s life expe­ri­ence) has long been known to sup­port ini­tia­tive, which is a main attrac­tion of per­son­al elec­tron­ic devices. The eas­i­ly editable–and geom­e­try rich–generative learn­ing envi­ron­ment of Logo offers supe­ri­or con­trol over the con­struc­tion of math­e­mat­i­cal objects of learning–and the gen­er­a­tion of syn­tax to express them. The abil­i­ty to man­age pac­ing is an impor­tant aspect of user con­trol. In the gen­er­a­tive learn­ing approach, stu­dents are drawn into man­ag­ing devel­op­ment of adapt­able intel­lec­tu­al skills with a focus on math that most stu­dents actu­al­ly enjoy. You will see this effect even in many stu­dents who have shunned math and are gen­er­al­ly at-risk of school failure.

Gen­er­al think­ing habits that grad­u­al­ly devel­op as stu­dents active­ly engage in writ­ing, oper­at­ing, edit­ing and dis­cussing math­e­mat­i­cal algo­rithms and prod­ucts, with teach­ers’ increas­ing­ly insight­ful coach­ing day after day, warm stu­dents to math­e­mat­i­cal activ­i­ty, deep­en their under­stand­ing, and increase their abil­i­ty to solve prob­lems with math­e­mat­i­cal con­tent they have not seen before. That stu­dents gain valu­able col­lab­o­ra­tive skills around math­e­mat­ics and learn to “han­dle the code” of a real pro­gram­ming lan­guage are addi­tion­al ben­e­fits that fur­ther their progress toward becom­ing an excel­lent­ly pre­pared entry-lev­el employee.

The eas­i­ly editable–and geom­e­try rich–generative learn­ing envi­ron­ment of Logo offers supe­ri­or con­trol over the con­struc­tion of math­e­mat­i­cal objects of learning–and the gen­er­a­tion of syn­tax to express them. The abil­i­ty to man­age pac­ing is an impor­tant aspect of user control.

There is far more to this sto­ry than we can detail here. Teach­ers who take our train­ing will learn more about Logo’s pow­er­ful fea­tures as they actu­al­ly work on lessons—as stu­dents do—and are coached in teach­ing the pro­gram. But you can go to this link for an advanced look at the many pow­er­ful fea­tures they’ll expe­ri­ence in our train­ing workshops.