Book Description
The value of a consideration of large numbers and exponentiation in primary and early secondary school should not be underrated. In Indian history of mathematics, consistent naming of, and working with large numbers, including powers of ten, appears to have provided the impetus for the development of a place value system. While today's students do not have to create a number system, they do need to understand the structure of numeration in order to develop number sense, quantity sense and operations. We believe that this could be done more beneficially through reflection on large numbers and numbers in the exponential form. What is reported here is part of a research study that involves students' understanding of large numbers and powers before and after a teaching intervention incorporating historical ideas. The results indicate that a carefully constructed framework based on an integration of historical and educational perspectives can assist students to construct a richer understanding of the place value structure.