#MathStratChat - August 26, 2026 Artwork

Math is Figure-Out-Able!

Math teacher educator Pam Harris and her cohost Kim Montague answer the question: If not algorithms, then what? Join them for ~15-30 minutes every Tuesday as they cast their vision for mathematics education and give actionable items to help teachers teach math that is Figure-Out-Able. See www.MathisFigureOutAble.com for more great resources!

All Episodes

Math is Figure-Out-Able!

#MathStratChat - August 26, 2026

August 26, 2026 • Scott Holmes

0:00 | 5:26

In today’s MathStratChat, Pam and Kim discuss the MathStratChat problem shared on social media on August 26, 2026.

Note: It’s more fun if you try to solve the problem, share it on social media, comment on others strategies, before you listen to Pam and Kim’s strategies.

Check out #MathStratChat on your favorite social media site and join in the conversation.

Twitter: @PWHarris

Instagram: Pam Harris_math

Facebook: Pam Harris, author, mathematics education

[00:00:00.820] - Pam
Hey, fellow math-ers! Welcome to the podcast where Math is Figure-Out-Able. I'm Pam Harris.

[00:00:07.500] - Kim
And I'm Kim Montague.

[00:00:08.790] - Pam
And this episode is a MathStratChat episode where we chat about our math strategies. Every Wednesday evening, I throw out a math problem on social media and people from around the world chat about the strategies they use and comment on each other's thinking.

[00:00:21.870] - Kim
Okay, so this Wednesday, our problem was 150 times 180. How are you going to solve this problem? Pause the podcast, solve the problem, then come on back to hear how we're solving it. 150 times 180.

[00:00:35.000] - Pam
Bam. Alright, who's going first?

[00:00:38.810] - Kim
I really want you to let me go first.

[00:00:41.830] - Pam
Well, okay then. Go ahead.

[00:00:46.110] - Kim
I think that if I have 150 times 180, I'm going to turn that into 300 times 90.

[00:00:55.760] - Pam
Okay. Because you doubled the 150 and you halved the 90. Or halved the 180 to get 90.

[00:01:01.070] - Kim
Okay. Yep. And then I'm finding the known fact in there, which is 3 times 9, which is 27. And then like your mom would have done, I'm going to scale by 10, scale by 10, scale by 10.

[00:01:12.450] - Pam
Nice.

[00:01:13.250] - Kim
To get 27,000.

[00:01:15.640] - Pam
Brilliant. Well, good, because I was not going to do that.

[00:01:18.640] - Kim
Oh, good. Okay.

[00:01:20.140] - Pam
I was thinking about a hundred and fifty 180s.

[00:01:24.960] - Kim
Okay.

[00:01:25.280] - Pam
So, I wrote a ratio table, and I wrote down one 180, one hundred 180s would be 18,000. And what I literally did was, like you said, my mom. I said, "So, that's going to be 180 times 10 times 10. That's 18,000." And then I said, "I don't need 100 of them. I need 150 of them. So, now I got to find fifty 180s. Well, that's just half of the one hundred 180s." So, half of 18,000 is 9,000, so add the 100 and the 50 together to get to 150. And add the 18,000 and 9,000. And that is your 27,000.

[00:02:00.720] - Kim
Yeah.

[00:02:01.420] - Pam
Bam.

[00:02:03.040] - Kim
Very nice.

[00:02:03.900] - Pam
Very nice.

[00:02:04.140] - Kim
Alright, we can't wait to see what you guys do every week. Join us on MathStratChat and let us know how you think about the problems. And, of course, comment on each other's strategies.

[00:02:12.640] - Pam
Okay. Can I just throw out one other one I'm thinking about?

[00:02:16.110] - Kim
Sure.

[00:02:16.910] - Pam
What if I were to play with 1.5 times 180?

[00:02:20.420] - Kim
You could do that.

[00:02:21.290] - Pam
Like, that's one 180s plus half 180 is 90. That's 270. And then I scale up from there to get 1.5 to 150.

[00:02:29.310] - Kim
Yeah. Okay, so now you're saying that, I'm going to just comment a little bit longer that the reason that we say the scale up, scale up, scale up as we're looking at our paper, if you see us, we're going to write 0, 0, 0.

[00:02:42.660] - Pam
Yeah, we're not "butt cheeking" decimals.

[00:02:43.740] - Kim
But we're not like add a 0, add a 0. Yeah.

[00:02:46.080] - Pam
We're not. Yeah, yeah. We're literally thinking scale up times 10 each time. Yeah.

[00:02:49.160] - Kim
And then every time you write that 0, and you're saying scale up times 10, you're seeing what that amount is if it were scaled up times 10.

[00:02:56.740] - Pam
Yeah, exactly that.

[00:02:57.720] - Kim
Yeah.

[00:02:57.940] - Pam
Relationships. No "butt-cheeking". Alright, y'all, we post the problems on Wednesdays at 7:00 p.m. Central. When you answer, tag me and use the hashtag #MathStratChat. Then join us to hear how we're thinking about the problem. We love having you as part of the Math is Figure-Out-Able movement because Math is Figure-Out-Able.