Learning Mathematics and Logo

These original essays summarize a decade of fruitful research and curriculum development using the LISP-derived language Logo. They discuss a range of issues in the areas of curriculum, learning, and mathematics, illustrating the ways in which Logo continues to provide a rich learning environment, one that allows pupil autonomy within challenging mathematical settings.

Essays in the first section discuss the link between Logo and the school mathematics curriculum, focusing on the ways in which pupils' Logo activities relate to and are influenced by the ideas they encounter in the context of school algebra and geometry.

In the second section the contributions take up pedagogical styles and strategies. They tackle such cognitive and metacognitive questions as, What range of learning styles can the Logo setting accommodate? How can teachers make sense of pupils' preferred strategies? And how can teachers help students to reflect on the strategies they are using?

Returning to the mathematical structures, essays in the third section consider a variety of mathematical ideas, drawing connections between mathematics and computing and showing the ways in which constructing Logo programs helps or does not help to illuminate the underlying mathematics.

Celia Hoyles is Professor of Mathematics Education at the Institute of Education, University of London