11

Teaching logarithms through

problem solving

Introduction
Within this chapter, we describe a lesson where students learn about loga-
rithms through problem solving. These problems include investigating how
many times a piece of paper can be folded in half; how many folds it would
take to reach the moon; and how the teacher is able to give the log of any
number without using a calculator.

Pause for thought

Try to answer at least one of these problems before proceeding further:
★ How many times can you fold a piece of paper in half, and why is there a
limit?
★ If you could keep folding in half forever, and if the moon is 384,400 km
away and paper is 0.1 mm thick, how many folds would it take to reach
the moon? (Write down a guess first before calculating).
★ Using a calculator to spot patterns, find a trick to solve log10 x without a
calculator.
 Teaching logarithms through problem solving ◆ 219

The lesson study took place in a sixth form college with students aged
16–19 in Manchester, UK, with an A-level (post-16 university entrance level)
mathematics class of nine students. The teacher who worked with us had
previously studied with us on our initial teacher training (ITE) course. He
had been a very impressive student and was now an impressive teacher with
deep pedagogical and mathematical understanding. Two of the authors took
part in the lesson study.
Lesson study is not about creating the perfect lesson, but rather about
developing pedagogical understanding. Often though, we can develop ped-
agogical understanding through trying to perfect a lesson and that was the
approach we took here. The aim, more fully explained in the following sec-
tions, was to find a way to develop conceptual understanding of logarithms
through students solving problems rather than through more traditional
explanation/illustration and practice. The research focus was on to what
extent, and how, students had developed conceptual understanding of loga-
rithms through problem-solving, and how the lesson could be developed to
do this further.
The lesson was very successful at engaging (and at times entertaining)
the students who came up with, and shared, important insights throughout.
Through this process they developed understanding of some key aspects of
the concept of logarithms, but without yet reaching full conscious systematic
understanding. The lesson and lesson study process provided us with much
to think about, and led to suggestions as to how to take the lesson further.

Background to the lesson

There were three overlapping motivations for the initial design of this lesson
(by one of the authors – DS). The first, and most important, was in relation to
one argument about problem solving (see Lesh & Zawojewski, 2007): do you
have to teach people the concepts and skills they need before they use them
to solve problems, or can you learn the concepts and skills you need through
problem solving? The lesson aims to show that you can do the latter. The
second motivation is an extension of that: given that there seems to be a lot
more problem-solving material available at lower school levels, is it equally
possible to do this for higher-level school mathematics (where most teaching
is seen to involve traditional transmissionist pedagogy, see Pampaka et al.,
2012)? The third motivation arose from a slight feeling of guilt at the freedom
220 ◆ Teaching logarithms through problem solving

we have as initial teacher educators in comparison to classroom teachers and

our students. Often, we will try to model (and then collectively reflect on)
good mathematical learning experiences with our trainee teachers. In doing
so we are free to start with any good problem or important aspect of peda-
gogy we want to illustrate, and don’t suffer the curriculum restrictions that
classroom teachers often face in having to teach a particular mathematical
topic on a particular day. For this lesson we therefore started with that restric-
tion, and picked a topic that is often taught in a traditional way and can be
seen as a difficult concept: logarithms.
In this section we outline some general guidelines on designing lessons,
which aim to develop concepts through problem solving, and look at some of
the implications for developing conceptual understanding of logarithms. In
the following section, ‘Lesson outline’, we will outline the main phases of the
lesson as usual, but will also take time to relate some of the ideas here to the
particular problems used.

Developing mathematical concepts

To explain the approach taken in the lesson, we begin with a perspective on
concept development based on the work of Vygotsky (1987). The starting
point for this perspective is to think of concepts as the totality of their connec-
tions. At first this definition can feel oddly recursive, as if something is miss-
ing. What makes it work is the existence of words (like logarithm), or symbols,
that act like the stick in candy floss/cotton candy and allow connections to
gather around them.
There are two main types of connections that matter for us here. One is
the connection of the concept to structured relationships within experience
(where experience can be physical, visual, social, mathematical, etc.), the
other is connection to other concepts, and to structured relationships between
concepts. These two realms of systematic relationships that we are trying to
embed our concept within are intimately connected. Our systems of concepts,
even the most abstract of mathematics or logic, are ultimately grounded in
human experience. All our experience is mediated by the concepts and sys-
tems of concepts we have, so that we see the world through our understand-
ing of it. However, thought and experience are also different and it is useful
to separate them as both types of connections are important in concept devel-
opment in different ways.
There are various approaches to relating mathematics to experience that
we can take within education. One is to ignore experience and just memorise
processes and the formal shell of mathematics; however, this doesn’t lead to
 Teaching logarithms through problem solving ◆ 221

very well-developed concepts. Another is to start with definitions and the rela-
tionships between concepts and then, once we have some grasp of those, try to
make them more meaningful by relating them to experience through problem
solving. This can work, but the initial phase of learning detached from experi-
ence can be alienating and difficult for many, and often we don’t then make it
on to the second phase. Here, instead, we want to start with experience of the
concept in engaging problem situations, and then aim to abstract, generalise
and draw out the essence of the concept through that problem solving.
Using this latter approach through one problem is usually insufficient to
carve out the concept as a conscious useable mental object though, at least
to the extent we desire. Developing concepts through problem solving also
requires seeing the concept from multiple perspectives to build up an image
of it, in particular through seeing its place within a wider system of concepts.
If the concept can be seen as a generalisation of some essential structure within
the original problem, we need to find a way, again through a new problem, for
the concept instead to be the object which is being generalised. These inverted
processes of generalising and being generalised combine to make useable
concepts, which interrelate both experience and the mathematical system. The
concept can then be further developed through its connection to other expe-
riences, and its embedding within different aspects of conceptual structure.
There are various ways to encourage the generalising of a concept within
problem solving through posing new problems. The easiest new problem is
asking students to communicate their solution or understanding to others.
This in itself creates a new perspective on the concept for students and can
encourage the development of connections to previous and wider under-
standing. Similarly, asking students to meaningfully compare different solu-
tions and different methods can do this. Beyond this, we can also develop
new problems that connect the concept to other parts of mathematics, or
embed it in wider mathematical processes.
To summarise: concepts develop through their connections to experience
and other concepts. We want students to first, experience the concept, in some
sense. We then pose problems related to those experiences which aim to draw
the concept into consciousness, employing problems in which the concept is
required for a solution. We then pose new problems that connect this emerg-
ing concept to other concepts.
So, to develop a sense and understanding of logarithms, we need to allow
students to experience aspects of the concept and its varied connections and
relationships, whether physically or mathematically, and then pose problems
that can make sense of those experiences. The most important aspects will be
222 ◆ Teaching logarithms through problem solving

a sense of exponential growth, logarithmic shrinking and the inverse relation-

ship between those (and within that awareness of their being two different
types of inverse of powers). Next most important (arguably) is then the rela-
tionship log xy = log x + log y, and the role that relationship plays. In the next
section we outline the problems designed to allow the experiencing, and then
drawing into consciousness, of these key aspects.
The different elements of this lesson have been used, sometimes together,
sometimes separately, within our own immediate context of initial teacher
education. However we were keen to see how it worked in the context of a
classroom of mathematics learners who hadn’t as yet encountered logarithms.
Our lesson study focus here was on understanding to what extent, and how,
the lesson helps develop understanding of logarithms through problem-
solving within that context, and how it can be further developed to do so.
In practice, the end result was an inspiring lesson where we witnessed
learners’ thinking develop through the activities. Careful reflection on
expected responses within the collective planning allowed the teacher to
pick interesting strategies to share with the class without shutting down the
opportunities for discovery and mathematical thinking. The lesson was very
successful in developing learners’ mathematical thinking and in enthusing
them; however, one (75-minute) lesson was insufficient to test out all aspects
of the plan. We touch on some of the ideas that we couldn’t get to in the next
section but the experience of the lesson developed our thinking of what could
come next so we return to that question in the section ‘What we have learned’
and within the accompanying lesson plan.

Suggested reading
Clark, K. M., & Montelle, C. (2010). Logarithms: The early history of a familiar
function. Loci, 2010(6), 1–11. Available on line at http://dx.doi.org/ 10.4169/
loci003495.
The Lesson Study Group. (2018). Teaching through problem solving. [online].
Retrieved July 5, 2019, from https://lessonresearch.net/teaching-problem-
solving/overview

Lesson outline
The expected outcomes of the lesson are that the students will develop their
understanding of logarithms through problem solving activity.
 Teaching logarithms through problem solving ◆ 223

Problem 1: how many times can you fold a piece of paper in half?
It is best to begin by asking students what they think first to get them invested
in finding the answer. There is a common misconception that you can only
fold a piece of paper in half seven or eight times, whereas it actually depends
on the size and thickness of the paper and the figure can be higher. The teacher
can then distribute paper for the students to try themselves. In the lesson we
describe next, we only distributed regular A4 sheets as we didn’t want to
spend too much time on this, but if you want to take more time you can have
a range of paper of varying thickness and size (e.g. tracing paper, A1 flipchart
paper, toilet rolls … ). After this experience you can ask the students the ques-
tion again to see if they have changed their mind and then show a video (see
the lesson plan for a link to an example) where some paper is folded more
than eight times (in the video they manage 11).
Again depending on how much time you have you can now have a dis-
cussion (or an even longer problem solving session) on whether and why
there is a limit and what that limit is. Very complicated equations exist but the
simplest explanation is that the paper at the fold can be seen as a semi-circle
with a radius equal to the thickness of the paper before folding. As the thick-
ness doubles and the length of paper halves (sort of), eventually there will be
insufficient paper to allow enough for half a circumference for the relevant
radius plus have anything left over (see Korpal, 2017). Again, as we didn’t
want to spend time on this here, we moved to the next problem instead.
The aim of problem 1 is to get the physical sense of repeated doubling (the
layers and thickness) and halving (the size of the paper) into the room. These
are the simplest forms of exponential growth and logarithmic shrinking. The
problem doesn’t quite get the full power of these across yet but provides a
physical experiential basis for the next question where the power of the expo-
nential comes across more clearly.

Problem 2: if you could keep folding a piece of paper forever, how many folds would it
take to reach the moon?
Again, it is good to begin by getting students to write down and then share
their own guesses. Most guesses are likely to be much larger than the actual
answer. The next step is to take suggestions from the students of what infor-
mation do we need to know. It is very likely they will suggest ‘distance to the
moon’ and ‘thickness of the paper’, but you can nudge them if necessary.
There are choices to be made here. We would like the powers of two to
be visible through this problem for later use. We could get these from the
number of layers of paper after each fold but students may not incorporate
224 ◆ Teaching logarithms through problem solving

this variable directly within their solutions so we would have to add them
artificially when sharing and discussing those. Alternatively, a common type
of paper, 80 gsm, is 0.1 mm thick so it is useful to agree to take that as our
thickness of paper. Then after n folds the paper will be 2n ÷ 10 mm thick. The
second choice relates to units. Do you want the distance to the moon to be
given in km, and add the complexity of using two different units, or do you
want to convert one measurement into the other and have longer numbers, or
use standard form? Finally, do you want to get all these ideas into the room
and then let students decide what they will use within the problem?
Overall, problem 2 is to an extent still grounded in their experience of
paper folding, but moves to an imaginative version of that experience. This
kind of step is an important part of mathematics and its history. For example,
we see it in the language of powers, with squaring and cubing, with their
basis in experience of squares and cubes, then being extended to dimensions
beyond the three we commonly experience. We also see it in moves such as
‘what if we could take the square root of –1?’ where the role of imagination in
the process is enshrined in the resulting name of imaginary numbers.
In this problem, students also experience the real power of the exponen-
tial given how few folds it takes, as the paper’s thickness rapidly acceler-
ates. But most importantly, in solving this question we also get experience
of exactly the thing we are interested in – logarithms, although, importantly,
without giving it a name. ‘How many folds?’ is a real world version of the
question ‘what power are we raising two to?’

Problem 3: the log to the base 10 trick

Here we shift from log to the base two to log to the base ten. This problem
requires some preparation and practice by the teacher, who will ask the class
for numbers and will then work out the log to the base ten of the number in
their head, letting students then check the result on their calculator. It is use-
ful first to show students how to use the button and try some examples. This
will help make the trick seem as impressive as it actually is (even to those
who have an idea of what logs are). It is possible, although far less entertain-
ing, to just let the students investigate what this button is doing. Perhaps use
this if you have practised and always get it wrong. If you are just nervous of
getting it wrong then that is very natural, so just have a go at the trick version.
Summary of the log trick (for a fuller discussion see Appendix): we would
recommend investigating and discovering the trick yourself. If you wish to
do that you should skip to the next paragraph now. The trick uses the scale
of the number to give the whole number part of the answer and relies on
 Teaching logarithms through problem solving ◆ 225

memorisation of the logs of the first 9 integers to get the decimal part. As
log (ab) = log (a) + log (b), writing any number in standard form will give you
a power of 10 (easy to find the log10 of), and a number between 1 and 10 (the
log10 of this will be between 0 and 1) multiplied together. So if, for example,
x = 25 900, x = 2.59 x104 in standard form. And so log10x = log10 2.59 + log10 104.
The second part gives us the whole number part of our answer, 4. Then, 2.59
lies a little over half way between 2 and 3, so log10 2.59 will be (approximately)
a little more than half way between log10 2 and log10 3, i.e. between 0.3 and 0.48.
Therefore, you could guess log10 25 900 = 4.41, which is correct to 2 d.p.
(additional ways to ensure accuracy in your answer are suggested in the
Appendix for this chapter).
To begin the problem, start by asking students to work out the log of a
random number to get them used to using the button. Share some of these
numbers and their logs to make everyone in the room aware that the answers
are complicated (i.e. that it would be unlikely anyone could work them out
without a calculator but you don’t have to be explicit about this). Then say
you can work out the log in your head without a calculator. Go round the
room taking suggestions and, using the trick, give the answers (this will take
you time for each one). After a few, encourage them to give you more difficult
numbers. After a few more correct, or very close to correct answers, the stu-
dents should be very impressed.
The problem for the students is now to work out how you are doing it.
You can leave this open and build from whatever they come up with, or you
can have hints ready if they are struggling (see final lesson plan – Appendix).
Students should notice things such as the logs of positive numbers of the same
length having the same first digit. Work with what you get to push for more
until it is clear that they could do the trick themselves if they know the logs
of the integers 1 to 9. Then get them to practise doing the trick themselves.
In this part of the lesson we are explicit about logarithms to the base ten
and attempt to find a practical way of working them out. By embedding this
within a problem students can discover aspects of logarithms for themselves.
Most of all we want them to experience base ten logs as having some sort of
inverse relationship with powers of ten; and to have some sort of experience
of log ab = log a + log b. Depending on what students have produced this
may be more or less explicit in the room.

Problem 4: comparing the log10 experience to the original problem from stage 2
For the final stage of the lesson, we were unsure when planning how far
the class would get, and what would be best to do at this stage. We wanted
226 ◆ Teaching logarithms through problem solving

somehow to return to the moon problem so that we could make connections

between log10 and log2 to help generalise awareness of what logs are.
Returning to the original problem, show a table with column headings:
number of folds; number of layers of paper; and thickness of folded paper (see
Figure 11.4 for an example). Ask the students how to get from one column to
the other (students can fill in numbers to help them). Once it is established
that number of layers is 2number of folds and thickness is the number in column 2
multiplied by 0.1, ask how to go backwards, e.g. for 384,400 km or 3.84 × 1011
mm. Going from column three to column two should be easy, but going from
column two to column one is more difficult. Return to log10 where when a
number was multiplied by ten its log increased by one, and ask what is the
equivalent that is happening in this case. Try to draw from the room that if
that was log to the base ten this might be log to the base two. Get students to
work out log2 3.84 × 1011 on their calculators to confirm it is 41.8.
Here, we are focussing on what is the same and what is different between
the two number patterns with the aim to make students more aware of what
logs are, in general.

Lesson reflection and analysis

The teacher had been teaching this class for only a short time but he was very
experienced in using problem solving within the classroom. Following our
planning session, which included a long discussion of the various elements,
and several exchanges via email, he went away to adapt the lesson for his
context, making various choices in how each problem would be presented
and used. The class was scheduled to last 1 hour and 15 minutes.
The lesson started with the teacher giving the class a piece of A4 paper
and asking them how many times they could fold it in half. Some learners
predicted seven and some eight folds, saying they had heard of this before
but couldn’t explain any further. When attempting it themselves, one student
manages six folds, and the students all laugh as another student claims seven
while standing up and applying much force as he tries to make the seventh
fold.
The teacher asked the learners which factors would contribute to helping
get to seven folds; the students are quick to suggest that the thickness and the
size of the paper would both influence the answer. The video is then shown
where a very large sheet of paper is folded 11 times with the help of a fork-lift
truck and a steamroller for the final folds.
 Teaching logarithms through problem solving ◆ 227

If we could keep folding forever, how

many times before it reaches the Moon?

Distances
Earth to Moon 384 400 km
Thickness of paper 0.1mm

Extension: Further Distances

Earth to Sun 1.496 X 108 Km
Earth to next nearest star 4.01 X 1013 Km
Length of visible universe 4.32 X 1023 Km

Figure 11.1 The paper-folding to the moon problem

The teacher then poses the next problem: ‘If we could fold the paper as
many times as we wanted, how many folds do we need to make in order to
reach the moon?’ (Figure 11.1), while acknowledging that this is an abstract/
mathematised question. One of the students comments that they would need
to know how thick the paper is. The teacher reveals this on his slides to be
0.1 mm, and asks what else would need to be known. The class suggests they
need the distance to the moon; this, too, is revealed as 384,000 km.
Before starting work on the problem the learners were asked to write a
guess, and some of these were shared. As expected all guesses were over-
estimates, with suggestions including one billion, one million, 300 and 100.
However, these last two are not too far away from the correct answer of 421,
showing some of the students already have a sense of the power of repeated
doubling.
The teacher now encourages learners to get down to doing some calcu-
lations, while keeping a record of what they are doing. He refrains from giv-
ing hints at this stage and limits his interventions to asking questions. He
does, however, pick up on interesting and significant strategies as they arise
in order to share them with the rest of the class.
228 ◆ Teaching logarithms through problem solving

Figure 11.2 An attempted solution

One student begins by simplifying the problem to reaching the height of

the room and another says the problem reminds him of compound interest,
making connections with the mathematical topic they had previously seen,
which involved exponential growth while lacking the general concept or lan-
guage. A few minutes later another student then claims he has an answer and
comes to the board to share his ideas (see Figure 11.2).
He explains that he, too, had used compound interest. In his explanation
he first converts the distance to the moon into millimetres and writes the
equation to solve, which he then rearranges to give 2x = 3.844 × 1012. But then
he says, ‘I don’t know how to solve that!’ and instead he says he worked out
an answer of x = 50 by using iteration of x2 on the calculator until reaching
the figure on the right of the equation.
Having had this significant strategy shared, but with a not quite correct
answer, the teacher asks all the learners to try it. He also asks them to keep a
record as they work through it, partly so that all students have some aware-
ness of the pattern of increasing powers of two (based on starting at 0.1 rather
than 1, but with the same recognisable digits), and an example of the subse-
quent student work can be seen in Figure 11.3.
While the teacher circulates, one student suggests using the square root to
solve the equation directly. Here we observe the common confusion between
the two inverses of powers that we discussed earlier. The teacher asks him to
test his theory and he quickly abandons it. This is a great pedagogic method
of overcoming misconceptions without stifling the independent learning of
the student. As this misconception is so important though, it would perhaps
also have been useful here to widen this discussion to the whole class. Mean-
while, the other students continue with the approach of repeated doubling,
 Teaching logarithms through problem solving ◆ 229

Figure 11.3 (Almost) the powers of 2

and reach consensus that the answer is 41.8 and so there needs to be 42 folds
(41 is said to be insufficient, and ‘you can’t have half a fold’).
The teacher now moves on to the log trick, first showing them how to use
the log button (representing log10 x) on the calculator, asking them to try their
own numbers, and sharing some of the results. He then asks the students
to test his magic ability, by giving him numbers that he can guess the log of
230 ◆ Teaching logarithms through problem solving

without using a calculator. The first numbers that are suggested are 49, 420,
then 497, and having practised at length the night before, he gives the cor-
rect answers to two decimal places. The students look a mix of impressed,
confused and astonished and there are scatterings of applause each time. He
then suggests they give him a harder number. What a harder number is in
this context is, of course, not really known by the students, but one goes big
and suggests 3.844 × 1011, taken from the paper folding task (and perhaps
hoping to find the solution this way). A correct answer earns a loud round of
applause this time. Other suggestions include 2.6232, 1000 and the genuinely
more difficult, 0.005. When asked about doing negative numbers the teacher
says ‘error’.
Students are then asked to figure out the trick and they are immediately
intensely focussed on the task, experimenting with numbers on their calcu-
lators. After a while one student says that, ‘every time I add zero the log
increases by one’. He writes the logs of 9, 90 and 900 on the board (0.95, 1.95,
2.95). Another shares that he did something similar and puts the logs of 1,
10, 100 and 1000 on the board (0, 1, 2, 3 – see Figure 11.4). Here we are very
close to seeing the powers of ten and their logs as being the inverse, which
gives you the exponent of ten in each case. The teacher makes a point of ask-
ing about the decimal part (‘there isn’t one’) to draw extra attention to the
importance of these numbers. A third student then suggests that the size of
the numbers give you the first digit of their logs, ‘if it’s hundreds its two, if
it’s thousands it’s three). After a little more thinking time, a fourth student
then suggests writing numbers in standard form and adding the logs of each
together.
At this point the teacher asks if any of them think they could do the trick
themselves, but some students say they still wouldn’t know the logs of the
first part of the standard form. One student suggests the teacher has mem-
orised them, that he has memorised the logs of one to nine. As the teacher
admits this is indeed what he has done, there is a great sense of satisfaction
in the room at their collective solving of the problem. He asks them to try to
learn to do the trick themselves by writing down the logs of one to nine and
memorising them. At this point, if there had been more time, it would per-
haps have been useful to explore the relationships between these numbers,
and to make connections with the idea of adding logs for multiplied numbers
that had already appeared in one form, to make this more conscious (the logs
of two, four and eight may stand out as being linked, then those of three and
nine, and then two, three and six). While trying to practise the trick, students
ask about numbers in between such as 6.84. The teacher talks them through
 Teaching logarithms through problem solving ◆ 231

Figure 11.4 The logs to base ten of powers of ten

the process of interpolating and how giving answers to 2 d.p. (or even 1 d.p.
if necessary) makes the task easier.
Again, if time had allowed, it would have been useful to spend more time
on this, as it connects to many other areas of the syllabus. It was evident,
however, that the teacher had captured their imagination with this activity
and had kept them engaged and enthused for the whole lesson. In fact, when
the teacher suggested going back to the folding paper problem one of the
learners refused because he was determined to master the log trick.
232 ◆ Teaching logarithms through problem solving

Figure 11.5 A student’s version of the known relationships

The teacher returned to the moon/paper folding problem to link the two
activities. He asked the learners to think about the relationships between
the number of folds, the number of sheets of paper and the thickness on the
paper (see Figure 11.5).
A student manages to fill in the table on the board, and the class are collec-
tively able to work out the relationships required to move from left to right,
including
number of sheets = 2 number of folds .

Going in the other direction proves much trickier (the missing relationship
in Figure 11.5), and perhaps too much at this stage and with the short time
remaining. One student goes back to suggesting taking the square root, but
the class can see that will not work. The teacher reminds the class that in the
previous problem when we multiplied by ten the log goes up by one. Here
the students can see that now the number of folds goes up by one when we
multiply the number of sheets by 2. At this point a parallel was made between
powers of ten and powers of two, however the missing piece of the jigsaw is
the explicit understanding that the base ten log is the inverse of the power of
ten. Since time had essentially run out, the teacher summarises by telling the
learners that the inverse here of 2x is log2 and he gets them to try finding log2
of 3.844 × 1012 on their calculators to confirm their original answer of 42.
 Teaching logarithms through problem solving ◆ 233

The lesson ends, leaving further developments until the next class on
logarithms.

Pause for thought

Consider the above lesson reflection and analysis.
★ What aspects of the logarithm concept are still missing for the students?
★ If you were teaching this lesson to your class, which tasks would you want
to spend more time on, and which less?
★ Did the teacher tell the students anything? At what points? What strate-
gies would you use to hold yourself back from telling?
★ Choose a different concept and think of problems in which that concept
could develop for students.

What we have learned

In this section we outline where we think the students had got to at this stage,
and where the lesson could be taken next. We also share some thoughts on the
lesson study process, and offer suggestions for designing problem-solving
lessons to develop different concepts.

Developing the concept of logarithms further

By the time the log trick problem had been solved, the students have arguably,
and to varying extents, some experience and consciousness of the following
(among other things): the rapid acceleration of exponential growth; the par-
ticular powers of 2; examples of doing what the logarithm does in practice
(e.g. finding x in 2x = 3.44 × 1012); the particular powers of 10; that log10 is
somehow related to the powers of 10; the connections of log10 to standard
form; and examples of multiplied numbers being equivalent to the adding
of their logs. What they haven’t developed yet includes explicit awareness
that logarithms are the inverse of powers, that they are one of the two distinct
inverses of powers, and that log (ab) = log (a) + log (b). It would be possible
for a teacher to simply tell the students these things at this point, relating the
explanation to the problems they have already solved. Given their previous
engagement and the understanding they have already developed they would
be maximally receptive to such an intervention, and it should effectively crys-
tallise their thinking. However, as we set out to avoid telling the students
234 ◆ Teaching logarithms through problem solving

anything, what else could be done to encourage the class itself to come up
with these crystallisations?
With more time for the original lesson there were some opportunities to
push a little further within the original tasks. For example, we could have
spent a little more time looking for patterns within the logs of the first nine
positive integers to create more examples related to log (ab) = log (a) + log (b),
which we could then have attempted to generalise. We could also have more
explicitly asked what the log button does after the log trick, as there is a pos-
sibility some students could guess this at this stage. Before doing this though,
it would perhaps be better to pose a new problem: Given that log means
log10, can we find a trick for logs of a different base, i.e. log2? After showing
students how to use their calculator to find logs to different bases, students
can play around as they have already done for log10. This time they are highly
unlikely to find a trick for doing them without a calculator (but please get in
touch if you ever find one). What will arise though are the numbers that give
single digit answers, that is, the powers of 2. This is likely to be connected
directly to the paper folding problem by students, and should, through gen-
eralisation between their experiences of log2 and log10 allow the answering of
the question of what are and what they do.
If students still don’t make that final leap, (and even if they do) this can
be followed by a simpler problem that also makes more explicit and con-
scious that logs are one of two possible inverses of powers: What are the
two inverses of a) 2 × 5 = 10, b) 2+ 5 = 7, c) 25 = 32, d) another mathematical
operation of your choice. This problem could lead to interesting discussions,
particularly around the operators of – and ÷ which they are likely to choose
for d). In this problem we also come very close to simply telling students that
log is the (other) inverse of powers. If this is an extreme case, it should also be
noted that this is true to an extent of all problems. Answers are always partly
contained in their questions (which is why coming up with questions is often
the hardest thing to do, and is something we ultimately want students them-
selves to be able to do).
Therefore, when we promote not telling as we do in this chapter (and in
most of this book) we should be clear we are not against implicit telling in
this way, i.e. through posing the right problems. We are also not against stu-
dents telling each other things as part of collaborative problem solving. We
are social creatures, and most problems in the real world we solve together
with others, not on our own. As we saw in this lesson, as long as students
are actively involved in this collaborative process their understanding will
develop as part of that, they will also feel as if they are part of having solved
 Teaching logarithms through problem solving ◆ 235

the problem rather than having just been told (because they are). Also, if
we are honest, we are not against teachers occasionally ‘telling’, and being
the ones who sometimes help crystallise understanding, or, for example, as
we have often seen in this book, providing the terminology for the concepts
which students are forming. But, ultimately, we would argue students can
develop conscious conceptual understanding through collaborative problem
solving without the need to be (explicitly) told anything, and this is the ideal
we should strive for.

Lesson study process

This lesson study followed a similar pattern, in various ways, to those of other
chapters in this book. Most of the initial research was conducted in the origi-
nal design of the lesson, and the testing of various elements in initial teacher
education sessions over a number of years. The lesson study team included
one of our ex-students on that course who contributed various design ele-
ments in adapting the core ideas for his class, following collective discussions
on the lesson with the two authors who also made up the lesson study team.
The lesson was filmed, audio recorders were placed around the room, and
materials produced by students were collected. An initial post-lesson analy-
sis took place immediately after the lesson with the whole team and then we
authors conducted a closer analysis through immersion in the collected data,
resulting in this chapter.
The class teacher described the experience from his perspective:

I gained a great deal from participating in the lesson study, and so did
the students. I liked the idea that a topic could be introduced concrete-
ly though a problem and brought to life through some number magic,
rather than dead abstract rules for pushing symbols around the page.
I gained some confidence through learning the log trick. I prepared as
much as I could and decided to just try my best, letting go of control to
the students who chose the numbers freely. How can I set an example
to my students to do the same with a problem, if they never see me in
a position of trying and not knowing the answer immediately without
having previously prepared it? I had to let go of any idea that this was
going to be perfect, but close enough to a couple of decimal places.
The folding to the moon problem was well anticipated and seemed
to flow well, and this was the part that we had talked most about in
the planning stages.
The main stumbling block was facility with inverses. The square
root function and the logarithm to base 2 evaluated at 4 coincide.
236 ◆ Teaching logarithms through problem solving

I told the students to try more numbers in their calculators to be sure,

but I can see that if I were to do this again that I could have had the
numbers of folds and the number of pages tabulated and addressed
that misconception by asking the students to take the square root of
other numbers in their table.

Next steps
Potentially, we could build on this lesson with new problems. For example,
since students now have strong awareness of powers of two and ten, and log2
and log10, we could pose the problem of how to convert between the two in
either direction, and then to generalise to a formula to convert logs of differ-
ent bases. But as the initial part of this ‘what have we learned’ section, has
already focused enough on next steps, we will instead similarly subvert this
space also, to encourage readers to develop their own lessons that develop
concepts through problem solving. A starting point for doing so is to do a lit-
tle of what Freudenthal (1983) has called ‘didactical phenomenology’. Didac-
tical phenomenology of a mathematical topic involves ‘describing it in its
relation to the phenomena for which it was created, and to which it has been
extended in the learning process of mankind … as far as this description is
concerned with the learning process of the young generation’ (p. ix). That is,
it addresses mathematical topics and concepts in terms of their formal logical
structure, but also from the perspective of the human activities from which
these generalisations arise, alongside the particular issues of their develop-
ment within teaching and learning.
In essence, this means analysing the concept; its inner connections and
sub-concepts; its relationship to other concepts and parts of mathematics;
current understandings of pedagogy related to the concept including, for
example, common misconceptions; how the concept appears within your
curriculum and what students are expected to be able to do; and, most
importantly finding where the concept is involved, explicitly or implicitly, in
current or historical human experience. This list seems intimidating but this
task doesn’t have to be done exhaustively. Much will be available in books or
online, for example, useful starting points for understandings of most topics
in school mathematics can be found in Nunes, Bryant and Watson (2009); and
the series that includes Mason, Graham and Johnston-Wilder (2005).
The next step is to think up problems, based on experiences that the con-
cept is part of, and that require the concept to solve. Also, think up problems
involving comparison, connections or other forms of generalisation, which
help make the concept more conscious for learners. These can be thought up
from scratch, or again through using online resources. The NRICH website
 Teaching logarithms through problem solving ◆ 237

(https://nrich.maths.org/) is one good place to find problems which you

can adapt, as is the National Stem Centre (https://www.stem.org.uk/), par-
ticularly if you search their historical mathematics resources from the 1970s
and early 1980s. The log trick at the heart of the lesson described above was
adapted into a problem from something found by searching Google for loga-
rithm and amazing. Most importantly, if you do develop anything that works
well – find a way to share it!

Pause for thought

Pick a narrow topic in your curriculum that is difficult to teach in an interesting
way.
★ Find a real-world example where the topic features, or is consciously
used.
★ List three concepts that appear in the topic
★ List three common misconceptions found for the topic
★ Find another area of the curriculum where something similar happens.

Note
1 Fans of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Adams, 1979) will recognise this num-
ber as also being the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and
everything. This may or may not be a coincidence.

References
Adams, D. (1979). The Hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy. London: Pan Books Ltd.
Freudenthal, H. (1983). Didactical phenomenology of mathematical structures.
New York: Kluwer.
Korpal, G. (2017). Folding paper in half. At Right Angles, 4(3), 20–23.
Lesh, R., & Zawojewski, J. S. (2007). Problem solving and modeling. In F. Lester
(Ed.), The Handbook of research on mathematics teaching and learning (2nd ed.,
pp. 763–804). Reston, VA: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics;
Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing. (Joint Publication).
Mason, J., Graham, A., & Johnston-Wilder, S. (2005). Developing thinking in
algebra. London: Sage.
238 ◆ Teaching logarithms through problem solving

Nunes, T., Bryant, P., & Watson, A. (2009). Key understandings in mathematics
learning. London: Nuffield Foundation. Retrieved from www.nuffield-
foundation.org/key-understandings-mathematics-learning
Pampaka, M., Williams, J., Hutcheson, G., Wake, G., Black, L., Davis, P., &
Hernandez-Martinez, P. (2012). The association between mathematics
pedagogy and learners’ dispositions for university study. British Educa-
tional Research Journal, 38(3), 473–496.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1987). Thinking and speech. The Collected Works of L.S. Vygotsky,
Vol. 1. New York: Plenum.
 Appendix
Lesson plan and resources
Lesson summary
Students work on a variety of problems in order to develop conceptual under-
standing of logarithms.

Focus on students learning

a Recognise the relative power of exponential growth and logarithmic
shrinking
b Develop understanding of logarithms including: the particular
examples of 2x, 10x, log2 x and log10 x; logarithms as the (other)
inverse of powers; log xy = log x + log y and its use in simplifying
calculations; and converting logs with different bases.

Lesson preparation
Learners will need A4 sheets of paper to fold, or a range of paper of differ-
ent sizes and thicknesses, and calculators. The teacher will need slides (or
an alternative) with distance to moon/thickness of paper; and an example
table including number of folds, number of sheets and thickness columns.
The teacher will also need to practice the log10 x trick in advance (see box
below for tips).

The lesson
Task 1: how many times can you fold a piece of paper in half?
Begin by asking students to write down then share what they think. Distribute
paper for the students to try themselves (either regular A4 sheets or a range
of paper of varying thickness and size, e.g. tracing paper, A1 flipchart paper,
240 ◆ Teaching logarithms through problem solving

toilet rolls etc.). After this experience you can ask the students the question
again to see if they have changed their mind and then show a section of video
where some paper is folded more than eight times e.g. YouTube MythBusters
video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRAEBbotuIE).
Follow up with a brief discussion (or an even longer problem-solving ses-
sion) on whether and why there is a limit and what that limit is.

Task 2: if you could keep folding a piece of paper forever, how many folds would it
take to reach the moon?
Begin by asking students to write down and then share their guesses. Then
ask students what information would be known to actually calculate. Share
the distance to the moon = 384,400 km and thickness of paper = 0.1 mm. Cir-
culate to encourage and to identify strategies to share. Ensure the final solu-
tion is illustrated using a table with columns with number of folds, number of
sheets and total thickness. Compare results with initial student guesses and
discuss.

Task 3: the log trick

In this problem the teacher asks the class for numbers and then works out the
log to base ten of the numbers without using a calculator. The students then
have to work out how the trick is done.
Begin by showing the students the log button on the calculator and
try some examples together, so students are confident in using the button
(and so it is clear to the class that logs are complicated). Tell the students
that you can work out the log in your head without a calculator. Take
suggestions for numbers and, using the trick (see box below), give the
answers. Encourage students to suggest more difficult numbers. Once you
have done a few and the students seem sufficiently impressed ask the stu-
dents to work out how you are doing it. Circulate to encourage, and to
identify student strategies to share. If this process is insufficient in itself,
possible hints for the class or individuals include: change one thing at
a time; try two-digit numbers then three digit numbers; try 5.5, 55, 550,
5500; can you make the decimal part of the answer disappear?; try writing
the number in standard form. Aim to get to the point where at least one
student can do the trick (allowing them to refer to notes rather than mem-
orise particular log values).
 Teaching logarithms through problem solving ◆ 241

Tips for doing the log10 trick

Finding the log10 x means finding the power to which 10 to has been raised
to make x. We outline here how to get a good estimate of the answer without
using a calculator.
Finding the whole number part of the answer
Let’s begin with two examples. 102 and 103, equal 100 and 1000 respectively,
therefore log10 100 = 2 and log10 1000 = 3.
This also means that anything between 100 and 1000, i.e. any three-digit
number, must come from ten being raised to the power of something between
two and three. So for 100 < × < 1000, log10 × = 2.something. This pattern con-
tinues for other powers of ten, e.g. for 105 = 100,000 < × < 1,000,000 = 106, log10
x = 5.something, i.e. to get the whole number part of our answer we just need to
count the digits after the first digit of our number.
This is perhaps easier to see if we write any number in standard form,
e.g. 34,562 = 3.4562 × 104. By the rules of logs (which we will assume for now),
log10xy = log10x + log10y, so log10 3.4562 × 104 = log10 3.4562 + log10 104. As
3.4562 lies between 1 and 10, i.e. between 100 and 101, log10 3.4562 will lie
somewhere between 0 and 1. As log10 104 is by definition 4, log10 3.4562 X 104
will equal 4.something.
Finding the decimal part of the answer
For the last example, we still need to find log10 3.4562, or in general the log10 of
the number between one and ten when written in standard form. This we do by
memorising the logs of whole numbers from one to nine and interpolating.
The logs of whole numbers from one to nine
Technically, we only need to memorise the log of 2, 3 and 7 (≈ 0.3, 0.48 and
0.85 respectively), as other numbers we can work out from those. For example,
log104 = log10 (2 × 2) = log10 2 + log10 2 and log10 5 = log10 (10/2) = log10 10 – log10 2.
Similarly we can use the fact that 6 = 2 × 3, 8 = 23 and 9 = 3 × 3 or 32. This gives us:
Log10 1 = 0; log10 2 ≈ 0.3; log10 3 ≈ 0.48; log10 4 ≈ 0.6; log10 5 ≈ 0.7; log10 6 ≈
0.78; log10 7 ≈ 0.85; log10 8 ≈ 0.9; log10 9 ≈ 0.95
Interpolating
For numbers between these we have to interpolate. Unfortunately, the log
function is not linear, which makes this a little harder, but it can be taken to
be so for most of the gaps between known values. So for example, log10 8.7 is
approximately 7/10 of the way between log10 8 (=0.9) and log10 9 (=0.95), giving
roughly 0.935, or 0.94 to two decimal places (the actual answer is 0.939519 to

(Continued)
242 ◆ Teaching logarithms through problem solving

six d.p.). The combination of estimating via assuming linearity and limiting the
number of decimal places to two and, if you are unsure one, will usually get you
there.
The hardest gap is between log10 1 and log10 2 as the function is least linear
here. For this gap you can just add a little on for the earlier numbers as the
function increases most rapidly here, and/or you can reduce the number of
decimal places you give to one.
It is also possible to use the addition rule of logs for this, and other, gaps. For
example 1.6 = 4 × 4 ÷10, so log10 1.6 = log10 4 + log10 4 – log10 1 ≈ 0.6 + 0.6 – 1 ≈ 0.2.
Complication: if you are given a negative number then (assuming we are
ignoring complex numbers) the log is undefined. But if the number given
is between zero and one then we are into the area where powers of ten are
negative. The trick still works but be careful with the addition that puts the whole
number and decimal parts together. First, work out the negative power that
would appear in the standard form version, then add the approximate log of the
other part of the standard form number, but remember this will involve a more
complicated calculation than just appending the digits as in the examples above.
For example, log10 0.007 = log10 7 × 10-3 = log10 7 + log1010-3 ≈ 0.85 + –3 = –2.15
Some examples:
Log10 65 000
1 There are 4 digits after the first digit so the whole number part will be 4.
2 6.5 is half way between 6 and 7, so log10 6.5 will be approximately half
way between log10 6 ≈ 0.78 and log10 7 ≈ 0.85, and so ≈ 0.82 to 2 d.p.
3 Therefore log10 65 000 ≈ 4.82 (actual answer is 4.812913357 to 9 d.p.)

Log10 0.00004392
1 0.00004392 = 4.392 × 10-5, so the whole number part would be –5, but
when we adjust for the decimal part it will be –4.something
2 4.392 is roughly 4/10 of the way between 4 and 5. So the log of 4.392 will
be roughly 4/10 of the way between 0.6 and 0.7, so let’s say 0.64
3 Log10 0.00004392 ≈ –5 + 0.64 = –4.36 (actual answer = –4.357338 to 6 d.p.)

Task 4: log2 x trick, and what logarithms are

Explain that the log button stands for log10, and that other logs to other bases
exist. Show students how to use their calculator to find logs to different bases.
Ask students to find an equivalent trick for log2. Once students find that pow-
ers of two give numbers without a decimal part, compare this for the base ten
and base two trick and ask the students what this means logarithms are.
 Teaching logarithms through problem solving ◆ 243

Via slides or handout ask students to find the two inverses of a) 2 × 5 = 10,
b) 2+ 5 = 7, c) 25 = 32 d) any other mathematical operation/calculation of their
choice.
Complete this task by returning to the table from task 2 and asking stu-
dents how you get from one column to the next in the table in both directions.
Get students to work out log2 3.84 × 1011 on their calculators to confirm it is
41.8.

Possible extension
Using knowledge of the powers of two and ten, find a way to convert between
log2 x and log10 x. Generalise to converting between logs of any two bases.

Suggestions for lesson study focus

◆ Focus on shift from instruction to facilitation of student problem
solving; how do you and the students respond.
◆ Focus on scaffolding. Vary the timing and content of scaffolding and
hints for the various problems; what impact does that have?