The computer as a catalyst in the mathematics classroom?

Candia Morgan

pp. 115-131

in: Stephen Lerman (ed), Cultural perspectives on the mathematics classroom, Berlin, Springer, 1994

Abstract

Although teachers are usually present, their interventions are more similar to those of the expert dancers in the samba school than those of a traditional teacher armed with lesson plans and a set curriculum. The LOGO teacher will answer questions, provide help if asked, and sometimes sit down next to a student and say: "Let me show you something." What is shown is not dictated by a set syllabus. Sometimes it is something the student can use for an immediate project. Sometimes it is something that the teacher has recently learned and thinks the student would enjoy. Sometimes the teacher is simply acting spontaneously as people do in all unstructured social situations when they are excited about what they are doing. The LOGO environment is like the samba school also in the fact that the flow of ideas and even of instructions is not a one-way street. The environment is designed to foster richer and deeper interactions than are commonly seen in schools today in connection with anything mathematical. (Papert 1980, p. 179)