Exponential thinking

Exponential operation is developed upon the repetition of multiplication and it

is more abstractive than addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.
Therefore, it is challenging to produce thoroughly an intuitive understanding of
exponentiation amongst level 7-10 students. Therefore, this investigation will
look at the question of in what ways students find it difficult to understand
exponentiation and what clarifications can be applied and delivered to
students to tackle the difficulty.
First of all, I tutored a current high school student who is in year 10 and has
just learnt exponentiation. He studied in pair with his best friend to prepare for
the coming test before I came to tutor him. There was a question that he
struggled with and was not satisfied with his best friend explanation.
The question was find x: 3x = 81. His best friend solved as
3x = 81
3x = 34
x = 4
His friend firmly told him that he needed to write down his answer in this
sequence to get a full mark in the test and claimed that it was the way his
math teacher prefer and similar to the textbook. My student understood that
34=81 but did not understand why the answer was like that. Then he asked me
that question.
Therefore, it is necessary to find out what does not make sense in the
answer. It is clear that to have an intuition of how exponential algebra works,
students should have strong knowledge of multiplication (Goos et al. 2007).
Thus the above question can be interpreted in more intuitive way that how
many times of multiplication can be done with the base of three to get the
result of 81. Therefore, we can apply for bigger algebra without memorising
34 = 81 such as find x with
3 = 59049
The natural approach is to write down the sequence of exponential values with
the base of three.
31 = 3; 32 = 9; 33 = 27; 34 = 81; 35 = 243; ; 310 = 59049

Therefore, x must be 10. The workout typically shown in textbook is the

mathematically written solution but it does not tell students the computation
methodology to get the result correctly. However, in my opinion, it is better to
teach them the sequence and pattern well and accept them to write down the
sequence and from there to conclude their answer rather than to only teach
them how to write a mathematically correct answer.
This pattern and sequence is also helpful to teach students about zero and
negative exponents by showing them from top to bottom the results are
always the previous one divided by the base as following:

Figure 1: Graphic organiser for index numbers (Goos et al. 2007)

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Next question is what about rational indices / exponents such as = 2 ?

In my point of view, before jumping to that, teachers should have a lesson
about some operations with indices first by exploring these operations with
examples thoroughly.
Operation 1:

= +

Operation 2:

( ) =

Some questions and explanation can be discussed during the lesson such as
What is values of 23 24 and 23+4 ?
23 24 = (2 2 2) (2 2 2 2) Seven multiplication of 2
23+4 = 27 Seven multiplication of 2 as well
What is meaning of (33 )4 ?

(33 )4 = 274 Since the operation inside bracket needs to be done first
then 274 = 27 27 27 27 = (3 3 3) (3 3 3)
(3 3 3) (3 3 3) = 312 !!!
Or operation 1 can be applied as
(33 )4 = (33 ) (33 ) (33 ) (33 ) = 33+3+3+3 = 312 !!!
And NOT (33 )4 = 33+4 = 37 !
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Back to the question about = 2, the proof can be shown as

1

= 2 2 = = 2
However, there are some issues in the proof
If = then a = b? This problem needs to be addressed at the
beginning as consequence of the definition with special case when =
0.
The proof using operation 1 but with exponent of a fraction number and
students have only learnt integer exponent so far!!! Assumption can be
made here to not confuse them.
Teachers make sure that students understand what is root square.
Moreover, this topic is closely link to factorisation and factor tree. The latter
one can be embedded and delivered as an application after learning the first
part of positive whole number indices or exponents.
In conclusion, exponentiation is an operation derived from multiplication
therefore multiplicative sense is essential for students to understand.
Therefore teachers should highlight where multiplication and addition
have to place in different situations.

References
Goos, M., Stillman, G. & Vale, C., 2007. Teaching secondary school
mathematics. research and practice for the 21st century., Crows Nest,
NSW: Allen & Unwin. Available at: http://0search.ebscohost.com.library.vu.edu.au/login.aspx?direct=true&db=cat02
404a&AN=vic.b1807895&site=eds-live.