Logo, motivation, and a project about garden gates in a primary classroom

Abstract

This is a description of a unit of work undertaken in a primary (Key Stage Two) classroom. It illustrates an approach to teaching which, in this case, appeared to increase the level of engagement of the children. This increased engagement in turn appears to have led to increased motivation and an improvement in the standard of work produced by the majority of the children in the class.The work involved the measurement of garden gates in the vicinity of the school and the children making use of photographs, measurements and sketches to help them to reproduce the gates as Logo designs. The complexity or simplicity of the end products (Logo designs) was left to the individual children to establish. Naturally help was given on the way and great progress was made by some children in their understanding of the basics of Logo.The teacher was in a position to monitor the progress of the work and in particular to notice increased motivation and enthusiasm for school work generally. It is not possible to show with any certainty that the style of curriculum organisation or the use of Logo were responsible for the increase in motivation but the feeling of the teacher, and of others involved, was that the work undertaken by the children during the school term in question contributed greatly to the children's enjoyment of school which in turn, it is believed, contributed to the satisfactory progress of the children. This is not a report of an empirical study, but a case study report of one example of "good practice" with a commentary which, it is hoped, will encourage discussion and consideration of ways of organising the primary curriculum and of the use of Logo. IntroductionThis is a report of a project with a year six class in which the children were expected to work with a reasonable amount of independence, but within the constraints of the work which was planned. Although the work was set in a broadly based