#MathStratChat - November 11, 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!

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Math is Figure-Out-Able!

#MathStratChat - November 11, 2026

November 11, 2026

0:00 | 3:18

In today’s MathStratChat, Pam and Kim discuss the MathStratChat problem shared on social media on November 11, 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

[00:00:00.450] - Pam
Hey, fellow math-ers! Welcome to the podcast where Math is Figure-Out-Able! I'm Pam Harris.

[00:00:06.870] - Kim
And I'm Kim Monague.

[00:00:08.140] - Pam
And this is a MathStratChat episode because 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.

[00:00:19.930] - Kim
Okay, so this Wednesday our problem was 7.2 divided by 18. 7.2 divided by 18. Pause the podcast, solve it however you like, and then come on back to hear how we're going to solve it.

[00:00:33.090] - Pam
Man, these division problems are killing me here. (unclear).

[00:00:35.090] - Kim
You love it. You love it.

[00:00:36.360] - Pam
I do, actually. I'm super intrigued. One of these days you're going to have to tell us how you came up with these problems. Because to be clear, I wrote a lot of the MathStratChat problems, and recently Kim's been writing them, and it's been fun to have a different. Yeah, anyway. Okay, Kim, with this one I gotta tell you. For whatever reason, 9s are just flashing...

[00:00:56.010] - Kim
Yeah.

[00:00:56.060] - Pam
...at me. So, I'm thinking about 72 divided by 180. So, I'm just going to scale both of them up times 10.

[00:01:04.690] - Kim
Did you write it in like fraction form?

[00:01:07.020] - Pam
I did.

[00:01:07.900] - Kim
So, you have 7.2 divided by 18 equals?

[00:01:10.960] - Pam
72 divided by 180.

[00:01:13.660] - Pam and Kim
Mmhm.

[00:01:13.720] - Pam
And then I'm thinking that if I divide both by 9, 72 divided by 9 is 8 and 180 divided by 9 is 20. And eight-twentieths is equivalent to four-tenths, which is 0.4. And I could have gone... From eight-twentieths, I could have gone to two-fifths, but I decided to go to four-tenths because then that was a... Which is silly because two-fifths should be a quick equivalent to a decimal. But anyway. Four-tenths was a more obvious equivalent to a decimal for me. Yeah.

[00:01:42.610] - Kim
That's cool.

[00:01:43.420] - Pam
Okay.

[00:01:44.370] - Kim
I kind of figured that you would do that. So, I'm kind of thinking about factoring.

[00:01:51.890] - Pam
Okay.

[00:01:52.020] - Kim
Which I was not thinking about when I wrote it. So, I played for just a second.

[00:01:57.440] - Pam
Okay.

[00:01:57.490] - Kim
I wrote 72 times one-tenth.

[00:02:02.520] - Pam
Okay.

[00:02:03.120] - Kim
Divided by 2 times 9.

[00:02:06.890] - Pam
Mmhm. I like that. I like that.

[00:02:09.210] - Kim
And then I was thinking about 72 divided by 9 is 8.

[00:02:14.810] - Pam
Mmhm.

[00:02:15.840] - Kim
So, then I wrote 8 times one-tenth divided by 2.

[00:02:20.430] - Pam
Nice.

[00:02:21.700] - Kim
And I got four-tenths also.

[00:02:22.880] - Pam
Because 0.8 or eight-tenths divided by 2 is 0.4. That's nice. That's really nice. There is a world where you could have kept... Well, yeah. I'm right. You had 8 times a tenth all divided by 2, right? And so, you could have done 8 divided by 2 is 4 and 4 times a tenth is... Okay.

[00:02:42.620] - Kim
Alright, we can't wait to see what you do every week. Join us on MathStratChat and have fun with problems like we do. We would love to know how you think about the problems and comment on each other's strategies.

[00:02:53.040] - Pam
Y'all, we post the problems on Wednesdays around 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. Math... Good heavens. Math is Figure-Out-Able movement. Say that 5 times fast. Math is Figure-Out-Able!