Pam  0:01  
Hey, fellow mathers! Welcome to the podcast where Math is Figure-Out-Able. I'm Pam, a former mimicker turned mather.

Kim  0:10  
And I'm Kim, a reasoner who now knows how to share her thinking with others. At Math is Figure-Out-Able, we are on a mission to improve math teaching.

Pam  0:18  
We know that algorithms are amazing achievements, but y'all, they're terrible teaching tools because mimicking step-by-step procedures actually traps students into using less sophisticated reasoning than the problems are intended to develop.

Kim  0:31  
In this podcast, we help you teach mathing, building relationships with your students and grappling with mathematical relationships.

Pam  0:37  
Wonder if I could say, "than the problems could be developing".

Kim  0:41  
Hmm.

Pam  0:41  
Hmm, I'll have to think about that. Y'all, we invite you to join us to make math more figure-out-able. Never sit on our laurels. We're always improving. 

Kim  0:44  
Yeah, for sure.

Pam  0:49  
Always trying to change, to tweak the message.

Kim  0:54  
Yeah. 

Pam  0:54  
It was fun the other day when we did this live. We worked with, what, 90, 85 leaders from across the state of Texas.

Kim  1:04  
Yeah.

Pam  1:04  
And we introed ourselves using the podcast intro. That was fun when they all repeated with us Math is Figure-Out-Able!

Kim  1:10  
Yeah, and we still do not have it memorized. 

Pam  1:13  
Well, you did. You had your part down. Good heavens. I almost had it. I almost had it. 

Kim  1:19  
We're going to get it down one day. 

Pam  1:21  
One little part I didn't quite have. Well, we read it. I read it. I don't know. Maybe you don't. I read it every time.

Kim  1:26  
You know, I think if you told me, “Say it now,” I probably couldn't, but....

Pam  1:30  
You had prepared. 

Kim  1:31  
You would think I had. 

Pam  1:33  
That's like the story of our lives. You're prepared.

Kim  1:36  
Trying to be. Oh, my gosh. Speaking of being prepared, it is 2026.

Pam  1:43  
Great way to start 2026.

Kim  1:45  
I know. We are getting prepared. What a year that we had in 2025. It was so busy, so full, and so good. Like, so many good things.

Pam  1:57  
Yeah. Fantastic 2025. Kim, let's look back a little bit 

Kim  2:02  
Yeah.

Pam  2:02  
at 2025.

Kim  2:04  
Okay.

Pam  2:04  
And recap just a little bit. So, some of the big things. Y'all, I wrote the Developing Mathematical Reasoning: Avoiding the Trap of Algorithms K-12 anchor book. It came out in February. Best seller on Amazon. Super happy with how that was a top new release for a little while.

Kim  2:21  
Yeah.

Pam  2:22  
Yeah, thrilled that that's going so well. Then, in September, the K-2 companion book from Corwin came out, Developing Mathematical Reasoning... Oh, golly, I'm not going to have the whole title down. 

Pam and Kim  2:34  
(unclear)

Kim  2:35  
Lessons, activities. 

Pam  2:36  
I'm turning around, so I can see it on my bookshelf. The Strategies, Models and Lessons to Teach the Big Ideas in K-2. So, that came out in February. Did super well. It was also a best seller for a little while. We wrote the 3-5 companion book.

Kim  2:52  
Yeah.

Pam  2:52  
That will be... Well, we'll talk about that in a minute. And we started writing the 6-8 companion book.

Kim  2:58  
Yeah.

Pam  2:58  
Got that first draft turned in on time. 

Kim  3:01  
Yes, yes.

Pam  3:02  
That was a stress, a stretch. A stretch, a stress at the same time. Ooh. Yeah. What are some other cool things that we did in 2025?

Kim  3:11  
We also published a couple of Problem String books. Super exciting. Problem String. 

Pam  3:17  
I think three of them. Three of the six. 

Kim  3:19  
Finally, finally, kindergarten, first grade, and fifth grade came out. So, there were... Let's name that. Two book projects going on at the same time. So, that was exciting news. We were happy to get Kinder out to wrap up. 

Pam  3:33  
Yeah, sorry. That finishes the series. So, we now have kindergarten, first, second, third, fourth, and fifth grade Problem String, numeracy Problem String books out per grade level. What a fantastic project. Maybe we'll just give a shout out to Holly Gabrielson, who got us started on that project. We wrapped her up. That was fantastic. Yeah, nice. What else?

Kim  3:53  
We published a fantastic, new mini workshop. That was exciting. 

Pam  4:00  
Yes, our secondary version of Transforming Teaching: Small Shifts, Big Impact. We already had the elementary one out, so now we have an elementary focused one and a secondary focused one. Fantastic two-hour, what we behind the scenes delightfully call it as everything you'll mess up when you try to teach math being figure-out-able. Just those first things that if we can catch, kind of nip it in the bud, then it's fantastic. Yeah, cool.

Kim  4:22  
Yep. 

Pam  4:23  
So, also super cool. Yeah, we put out a brand new full length workshop, High School Problem Strings.

Kim  4:30  
Yep.

Pam  4:30  
That had been in the hopper for a while. Really excited about getting Problem Strings out for topics across the secondary curriculum from linear functions to rational functions, a little bit of data in there, statistics. I think even a little bit of probability, exponential functions. Like, pick your poison in secondary math, and we've got a Problem String to help you teach that more figure-out-able.

Kim  4:54  
Mmhm. 

Pam  4:54  
Mmhm.

Kim  4:55  
So, I'm just going to name that one more time. That was six books, a mini workshop, and a full length workshop. So, if you have seen Pam recently in the 2025 year.

Pam  5:05  
I looked bleary and a little bit... 

Kim  5:07  
Congratulations. She held it together.

Pam  5:11  
We were sucking air over here. Just getting a lot of really high quality stuff done. Yeah, I got to see a lot of people around the world. I went to South Korea for the first time. Hawaii. Had a wonderful time with brilliant teachers there. Georgia, Florida, Vermont. Spent a week in northern Alberta in February. That was cold and delightful, delightful math teachers there. New Jersey, Nebraska, Ohio. Several places in Texas. Virginia, Chicago, Wyoming, Alabama, California. 23 conferences attended. Whoo! Lots of traveling.

Kim  5:47  
Lots of travel. 

Pam  5:48  
Just wonderful to meet all of those people. That was fantastic.

Kim  5:51  
Yeah. And back home, you also were super busy. I think you had 55 virtual professional development sessions that you did.

Pam  6:01  
Yeah.

Kim  6:01  
That filled out your calendar quite a bit. Really exciting stuff in 2025. We sold over 5,000 books. And maybe the most fun. We gave out 191 scholarships to some workshops, so that teachers could learn and grow on their own. That was really fun to do.

Pam  6:21  
Yeah, that was awesome. We give out those scholarships during or right before the challenges that we did last year. We had three challenges. We had almost 10,000 people registered, over 3000 people on live. Great time in our free challenges where we just help the world learn to make math or figure-out-able. Lots of fun. 

Kim  6:43  
Yep.

So, 2025, was... I like what you say when I want to say, "Oh, my gosh. I'm so overwhelmed. We're so busy." You say... What do you say? You say, "My life is full." Is that what you say? Like...

Pam and Kim  6:55  
My life is full of...

Kim  6:55  
Good.

Pam  6:55  
wonderful things. Yeah.

Kim  6:58  
That's the phrase. 

Pam  6:58  
And I'm always open to new opportunities. 

Kim  7:01  
There you go. That's one. Alright, so let's talk about 2026. What do our listeners...

Pam  7:07  
Yeah, let's talk about new opportunities. 

Kim  7:08  
need to know, yeah. 

Pam  7:08  
Yeah.

Kim  7:08  
What's up? What do we got?

Pam  7:09  
We got some things coming up. So, I'll focus on one of the big. So, we have the anchor book for Developing Mathematical Reasoning out. The K-2 book came out in September. The 3-5 book will be coming out in February, maybe early March. I think it's February. Will be coming out from Corwin. Again, that title is Developing Mathematical Reasoning: The Strategies, Models and Lessons to Teach the Big Ideas in 3-5. So, in a big way, the K-12 book was the anchor book.  It was, “What are the traps of algorithms and how can we avoid them.” Really was sort of, I'll be honest... Help me... Let me convince you that algorithms trap students. 

Kim  7:47  
Yeah.

Pam  7:48  
That was the main push of that book. And then a little bit of what to do instead. The grade band follow-up books, the companion books, are now they dive in. They really don't do a whole lot of, "Let me convince you". It's really like, "What do you do to teach the big ideas, models and strategies in those grade bands?" So, K-2 is already out. 3-5 will be coming out February/March. 6-8 will be coming out... See, do I know this? 

Kim  8:14  
It's like August? 

Pam  8:16  
I think it's September. 

Kim  8:17  
Okay.

Pam  8:17  
Yeah, in September. So, we have turned in the first draft. It's out for review right now. We'll get the edits back. We'll get the reviewers' comments. We'll turn in the second draft. And then there's all that fun editing stuff where they make it look pretty, and we have to catch all the math errors. And holy cow, you would think... Kim, it's amazing how many of us can look at a specific piece of writing and still find an error.

Kim  8:42  
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Pam  8:42  
I'm always comforted when I realize how many textbooks went out, where you know like, many more people looked at them and there was always those few errors that still made it.

Kim  8:50  
Yeah, it's bound to happen. 

Pam  8:51  
We do our best. We do our best (unclear). We will be working on getting that out, and in a big way, turning our attention, beginning of this year, here we are, to writing the 9-12 book. So, we're really excited about writing that. I feel like this is in a big way kind of coming home. This is where I started. I was a high school math teacher. And, yeah, super excited to share what I've learned over the years and what really can be helpful in teaching high school math as more figure-out-able.

Pam and Kim  9:18  
Yeah.

Kim  9:18  
And that'll be fun to wrap up that particular project. We'll turn our attention to maybe what's next. There's always something, right? So, we also have a challenge coming up. We continue to do free opportunities for teachers to learn and grow together with their teammates, with their colleagues at school in challenges. We also partner with some really great companies. We do webinars with hand2mind and Forefront and Number Club. Great people doing great things, and we always like to be a part of that as well.

Pam  9:53  
Holy cow! Now, that you mentioned hand2mind, we probably should say that Foundations for Strategies. Sorry, back to 2025. 

Kim  10:00  
Yeah.

Pam  10:00  
Our hand2mind Foundations for Strategies that we

Kim  10:03  
Oh, good heavens.

Pam  10:00  
worked all on in '23 and '24 came out in 2025. Super. Kim, I have to tell you. I did a webinar with hand2mind just last week. Oh, well, see now I don't know when this podcast is going to drop, but we're recording it. When we're recording it, I did it just last week. And I've already done three webinars with hand2mind on Foundations for Strategies. And so it was kind of this fun conversation like, "Uh, you got any more?" And I was like, "Oh, my gosh! Yes!" Because that product is so... Kim, it was so much fun to do completely like stuff I've never done before for Foundations, because we packed Foundations for Strategies so chock full of amazing things that, honestly, we don't talk about that much.

Kim  10:43  
Right. 

Pam  10:44  
So often we talk about things E, A that we can... E? I just said "E". That's a letter in the

Kim  10:49  
I heard you.

Pam  10:49  
alphabet that I meant A. A, like, first. Good heavens. W. Anyway, the first that we can do on audio, you know, like, and so Problem Strings, things that we can do that you don't have to be looking at. So, on the podcast, we do a lot of audio stuff. In challenges, we do kind of "first looks" of things.

Kim  10:49  
Yeah.

Pam  10:49  
Because we're inviting new people into the Math is Figure-Out-Able community. I mean, veterans still get a lot out of it. But it's often we're doing the things that are sort of impact when you first think about math being figure-out-able. 

Kim  11:20  
Yeah. 

Pam  11:20  
So, how cool is it that in Foundations for Strategies, we really could dive deeper into other things that we do and that we're experts on, that we can help people realize these are the other things to build those Foundations for Strategies that really then you get good at in Problem Strings. Anyway, it was just super cool to be able to dive into parts of that project that I don't get to talk about very often.

Kim  11:40  
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was fun to write lessons and to brainstorm and say like what will we put in what order.

Pam  11:46  
And why?

Kim  11:47  
Yeah, where. Yeah, that was a lot of fun.

Pam  11:50  
Yeah, nice. Cool.

Kim  11:51  
Also coming out in 2026. I know there are a lot of listeners who are going to be excited about that. The second fractions workshop is coming out. 

Pam  12:00  
Oh, yeah.

Kim  12:01  
In May. That's going to be exciting. The first fraction workshop was a huge hit. So many people wrapping their heads around what it means to teach fractions that are figure-out-able. And so, in May, Fractions 2 will give people opportunity to do operations with fractions.

Pam  12:17  
Yeah. In the first one, we really focused on meaning of fractions.

Kim  12:20  
Yep.

Pam  12:21  
We did some operation stuff to get at the meaning of fractions, but now this Building Powerful Fractions 2 will really focus on the four operations with fractions. So, yeah, we're super excited about that. That was a lot of work. 

Kim  12:32  
Yeah. 

Pam  12:33  
Yeah. Whoo! it's coming out. Cool.

Kim  12:35  
You're traveling.

Pam  12:37  
Other things that are happening in 2026, a few of the exciting places. I'll be heading back to South Korea. That's really cool. We're all going to head to NCTM in Indianapolis. I get to do some keynotes. I'm thrilled to be able to do the keynote at the T-Cubed International Conference. I've had a long, wonderful history with the T-Cubed. That's Teachers Teaching with Technology. Those, I got involved really early in my teaching career. That's been a super support to me as a person who's really thinking deeply about how we can use technology as a tool and not a crutch. Anyway, so I'm really thrilled to be opening that conference for them. Also, I'll be working with leaders in South Carolina. I'm going to OAME in Ontario. I always CAMT in Texas. I get to do the keynote for the Idaho State Conference. Again, going back home.

Kim  13:25  
Yeah.

Pam  13:25  
Raised in Idaho, so I'm super excited to be able to do that. 

Kim  13:28  
Yeah.

Pam  13:29  
We're both going to be going to Allison Mellows, Get Your Workshop On conference, so that will be kind of fun.

Kim  13:34  
August. Yep.

Pam  13:35  
Is that in Connecticut? I think Connecticut. Allison, where are you from? 

Kim  13:38  
Massachusetts. Yeah.

Pam  13:39  
Massachusetts, Connecticut. Pick an eastern seaboard state. 

Kim  13:42  
It's going to be beautiful. Yeah. 

Pam  13:42  
 It's going to be beautiful, we'll have a good time. I get to go to Iowa's State Conference, do their keynote. NCTM/SM in Denver. That'll be super full, super cool. And a lot of others are in the works at this point. So, yeah, looking forward to a great travel schedule in 2026.

Kim  14:01  
Yeah. I don't know if you know how much I love Colorado, but I might have to tack on a little bit of time while we're in Denver.

Pam  14:07  
Yeah. I did a really cool hike once at a conference, and that's where I met Allyn Fisher. Hey, Allyn. I wonder if Allyn listens to our podcast. 

Kim  14:14  
Well, I got to tell you.

Pam  14:14  
She's like the brains behind Bridges in Math. That's where I met her. Anyway, keep going.

Kim  14:19  
There's a fantastic climb that I want to do near there. So...

Pam  14:23  
Okay, I'll be in shape. Alright. 

Kim  14:23  
Oh, yeah. Let's do it. Yeah.

Pam  14:23  
I mean, I guess I just sort of invited myself. 

Kim  14:23  
Yeah, you're totally welcome to it, yeah. 

Pam  14:26  
I mean, you could take your husband and go. It would be cool.

Kim  14:31  
Yeah.

Pam  14:32  
Let your kids out hike you.

Kim  14:35  
They would be great. Yeah. Okay, we're also working on new mini workshops, filming for workshops for our teacher and leader coaching groups. We're also prepping for live coaching sessions, live math events. You know, in those coaching groups, we do live events for them all the time and coaching sessions where we can answer questions. Yeah.

Pam  14:55  
Yeah, sorry to interrupt. Yeah, love our live coaching groups. We call them Journey and JourneyLEADER.

Kim  15:00  
Yep.

Pam  15:00  
Where we meet every month either in coaching or Q&A's. And, like you said, those live math events.

Kim  15:05  
Yep.

Pam  15:06  
I think we have a special guest that we're kind of excited to announce. 

Pam and Kim  15:09  
Yeah.

Pam  15:09  
Really love, love. That fills that teacher heart of mine, be able to work over time with people and see growth and really have relationships. Yeah, it's very cool.

Kim  15:21  
Busy. (unclear). 

Pam  15:21  
Alright, Kim, let's wrap this session up. If I may, I'm just going to ask you. 2026. What's going on personal for you in 2026?

Kim  15:32  
Yeah. Oh, wow. My oldest is graduating this year. And, Pam, you know, I go to the nearby town to get my hair cut, and I drove past the arena the other day that he's going to be graduating in, and I did not tear up at all. Not even a little bit. No tears. 

Pam  15:48  
Yeah. Are you saying you're excited? Is that what you're saying? 

Kim  15:51  
Oh, he's amazing and wonderful, and I can't wait to see him launch his life. And yes, that's going to be a fun May graduation.

Pam  15:58  
That's a big first for you. You have your first...

Kim  16:00  
It is, yeah, first kid.

Pam  16:01  
...graduate from high school. 

Pam and Kim  16:02  
Yeah.

Pam  16:02  
And he's doing it in flying colors. He's got great plans for university. 

Kim  16:06  
Yeah.

Pam  16:06  
Super, super happy. Yep. Way to go Luke! 

Kim  16:09  
Yeah, he's pretty amazing. What about you? What's your... 

Pam  16:12  
Well, so my two grandsons just turned two, so I'm going to drive some more trucks and throw some more balls with them. 

Kim  16:20  
Yeah.

Pam  16:22  
Actually, the driving truck thing, I'll do. But, man, throwing a ball. Those kids will throw a ball with me. Love it. Love it. (unclear)

Kim  16:29  
Super fun. 

Pam  16:29  
Yeah, you know, I was a little bit of a baller growing up, and so I haven't had that recently. All my kids have flown the coop.

Kim  16:36  
Yeah, yeah. 

Pam  16:36  
So, that's been exciting to have that. Probably for me the one thing that I'll mention is I think I might actually take a vacation. Now, it's not that I haven't taken like some vacations here and there, like to see family. I do like to see my extended family. But what I haven't had for a very long time isn't a vacation where I didn't have a huge deadline to come home to. 

Kim  16:57  
Yeah, that's nice.

Pam  16:58  
So, once we get that 9-12 book really wrapped up, I'm looking at trying to just get away and not have one of these books to come home with this deadline afterwards. That's on my radar, Yeah. So.

Kim  17:12  
So well deserved, so well deserved. And, yeah, it'll be nice to like completely like let go. Maybe we can get it together, and then have a moratorium. Like, don't talk to Pam for (unclear).

Pam  17:22  
Come home and go, "Golly, do I have anything to do?" for a minute. That's the goal. Yeah, that's. Whoo! 2026.

Kim  17:28  
I won't hold my breath.

Pam  17:30  
Here we go. 

Kim  17:31  
Alright. Well, it's always something new and exciting here at Math is Figure-Out-Able. Stay tuned and come along with us on our journey. 

Pam  17:37  
Yeah, we're so grateful to have you on our journey. Thanks for tuning in and teaching more and more real math. To find out more about the Math is Figure-Out-Able movement, visit mathisfigureoutable.com. And join our Math is Figure-Out-Able Teacher Facebook group if you're not in there, where Kim's in there all the time. Y'all, keep spreading the word that Math is Figure-Out-Able!