I have done many math workshops and online trainings over my 24 years as a classroom teacher. But in January of 2024, I was at a math leadership conference when someone said the words that would have the most impact on me as a math teacher. “Have you heard of Pam Harris?” “No,” I replied. “You should check out her podcast, Math is Figureoutable.” And I did check it out. On the 4 hour drive home, I listened to Pam and Kim, and my mind was blown! Succinct, engaging, sense-making! I was hooked. That bit of advice has since led to my most transformative year teaching math. FINALLY, I know HOW to help my students reason and make sense of math! Now, a bit over a year later, I am so grateful to the person who recommended I check out this podcast. And I do my best to pay that gratitude forward, recommending Math is Figureoutable to colleagues and acquaintances, hoping that they take the same advice I so fortuitously took, “Check it out!”

THE best math education podcast out there right now! Learn real math yourself, then have FUN teaching it to your students!

This podcast is fantastic. Pam and Kim challenge me in the most delightful ways.

I love podcasts. For over a decade, I have been listening to education-related podcasts on my commute to school. When I started a new position as a math interventionist, I searched for a podcast that could help. Finding Pam and Kim has changed my life. I began listening three years ago to become a better teacher, but in the process, I have gained so much awareness about my own mathematical thinking. I am now able to take my newly found knowledge and confidence into the classroom and share with students and among colleagues. With so many fixed-mindsets and the “fake-mathing” that exists in schools, it feels like an insurmountable task, but I am convinced that the Math is Figure-Out-Able movement will prevail! Spread the word!

I cannot recommend this podcast enough! I recently moved from elementary school to sixth grade math in middle school. I have always loved math, I sort of ‘think’ in numbers. Even with some built-in numeracy sense, I have learned a ton from Pam and Kim! I work on colleagues all the time to get them interested in certain episodes or workshops. I’m trying to get into Journey through my district and hoping that more in the district will follow! Although I wish I could go back to the beginning of my career and start over with math, at least I know I am making positive changes now!

As I listened to today’s podcast I was reminded of how I found Pam and Math is Figureoutable in the first place. I took advantage of the hard work Christina Tondevold did in one of her Build Math Minds summits and I have been hooked ever since. Hooked on “building my math mind” as Christina says, as well as helping my students see that math is indeed “Figureoutable”. I am in my 34th year of teaching and I really wish I could go back about 10-15 years, maybe more, and just do better. I love this journey and I love even more the fact that I have encouraged people to join me. Colleagues have taken workshops, they are engaging in podcast studies and are doing more to build their numeracy. I cannot recommend this podcast enough. To say it has changed me as a math educator is an understatement.

This podcast helps bring awareness to the problems student face in math today and how we can better prepare them for not just tomorrow but their future as thinkers.

If you are a Math Teacher, a parent, or someone interested in learning how math is figureoutable, you MUST listen to this podcast! Pam and Kim are so knowledgeable and relatable. Thanks for putting your work out into the world!

I am absolutely LOVING all that I am learning from Pam Harris. As a teacher, it doesn’t feel like we have extra time, but I genuinely look forward to “owning” a new idea, strategy, or concept that I can easily turn around in my classroom to help build and strengthen students’ thinking. Pam makes even the most complex ideas comprehensible and purposeful so that we can then be prepared to help our students find that math is actually figure-out-able. Highly recommend!

I just finished listening to the second podcast about mean, median, and mode. I just have to say I can’t believe I didn’t understand how I could just view the left overs as the fractional difference to determine mean. Not only is this more visual than to add it all up and divide but so so much easier. Pam and Kim you continue to blow my mind with how much more figueoutable you make math for this 50 year old math teacher!!

I’m very grateful for Pam and Kim’s work to promote the development of Mathematical reasoning. This podcast has grown my own and has equipped my work with students. The recent episode on exponents got me thinking about why any number raised to the “zero-th” power is always equal to one. The problem string about adding exponents generated the connections and relationships I needed. Essentially, it seems it’s the same reasoning as any number divided by itself is one, however, from an “addition of powers” angle. 1 =X^m/X^m =X^(m) * X^(-m) =X^(m+-m) =X^0 =1

I first heard the name Pam Harris when I was scheduled to attend her PD session at the WI Green Lake Math Conference in May of 2020. Since that didn’t happen, I had to do my own research to find out who Pam was. Needless to say, I found this podcast and have been a loyal listener ever since. I am a K-8 certified elementary teacher who spent 20 years teaching middle school math and also taught most of the other younger grades before becoming an educational math consultant serving 39 school districts in WI. I retired in 2021 with 40 years of teaching experience, but I still support one school district as a math coach. I am passionate about math and often quote Pam during my coaching sessions! Thanks for helping teachers to make sense of math and how to teach it more effectively! Jan

I learned about this podcast from Christina Tondevold when she was speaking about lifting up other women. I am an interventionist who works with students from K-5 and am very conscious of where they are headed (math wise) and how important connections can be to higher math. I love your stratchats and all the episodes. I am trying to kee from binging so I have time to really digest each one. Keep up the great work!

I started listening to this podcast while researching ways to support students struggling with dyscalculia. As I listened to more episodes, I found myself diving deeper into the world of numeracy. Unlike other podcasts that often seem to focus on selling products rather than providing valuable content, the episodes here are full of practical insights. Pam and Kim guide listeners through mathematical concepts slowly and deliberately, helping me reason through problems and make connections in ways I never thought possible—especially in more advanced math. Thanks to this podcast, I’ve made incredible progress in my numeracy journey, and I now feel confident helping my middle school son tackle algebra. Thank you for everything you do!

I absolutely love listening to this podcast! I am a third grade teacher, and I have been trying for years to teach math differently. this podcast is filled with great ideas and great conversation to help any math teacher or parent! Thank you for what you do!

30 years ago, I hung an 8 x 2‘ sign in my first classroom that merely stated “THINK”. And then I proceeded to teach my kids to mimic. Following this podcast has opened my eyes to the surface level of understanding I have been chasing all these years. This past year I have listened to Pam and Kim, sometimes four times, before recreating the same problem string in my classroom. And my 4th graders have blown me away - and literally outperformed me in their developing intuitive sense of numeracy. I am so grateful for the power this gifts my students, and even more grateful that the problem strings can now be purchased in a book! I will continue to listen for the insight and encouragement to teach counter the rote-algorithm-culture, but can drive safely without jotting things down!!

I love listening to this podcast and learning about math and teaching from Pam and Kim. The hosts keep the conversation informal and they both bring different perspectives while sharing their common believe that “math is figurable”. This podcast is professional development in my car and it has helped me improve my own math skills and my teaching.

I enjoy listening to your podcasts each week and thinking about how I can encourage my students to be better math thinkers. Thank you for sharing your ideas with all your listeners.

This podcast is a MUST for math educators and all those who want to “math” and develop their own numeracy. I walk away from each episode with new insights into my own numeracy and my own instructional practices as a math teacher! Pam and Kim have helped me become a better math teacher for my students!!! And best of all the journey continues!

I love your show! I’ve been waiting to be inspired and thanks to you I am now inspired to make some great changes to our program. I recommended it to our school district and asked them to consider using your strategies. I am so bummed I didn’t hear of you till last year but I’ve binge listened to 177 episodes starting last summer. I am using your strategies in my collaboration meetings but I have a senior staff and it is hard to convince them to change their practice. I am close to retirement and I’m determined to convince my staff if not the whole district to make math figuroutable. I think our kids would benefit so much from doing so. You guys are brilliant!

I love listening to Pam and Kim share different ways to think about and teach math. I have gained so much from them and implement a ton of what they are sharing into my teaching practice. They are fun to listen to and breakdown the math in real, fun, and practical ways. Thank you for sending the message that the use of reasoning and understanding of numeracy is the way to understand math. I’m here for it, and so are my students! Kim Bright

I happened across Pam and Kim two years ago when, after 20 years of teaching math in grades 2-8, I was looking for a better way. Since then I have listened to every single podcast, participated in every challenge, and try every #mathstratchat. I have learned so much these past couple years. My 13 year old son is usually in the car with me and we will listen to the podcasts together. I have him hit pause when Pam throws out a question and we work through it together. His thinking and number sense has improved as well!

Everyone can do more real math than fake math

Every time I hear a podcast or take a workshop I learn something that I can apply in my classroom. Ever since I was introduced to Pam Harris, I have applied what I learn in my 3rd grade classroom and I am amazed at how well students are able to reason things out and learn mathematical relationships. If you want to become a better math teacher you need to join the math is figure- out-able movement. I love listening to Pam and Kim and thank you for always making me laugh. I love my drive home on Tuesdays because I listen to you both.

A homeschool friend of mine shared your website with me and I searched for the podcast! Wow! I wish you both had been my teacher! As a parent and home educator I am feeling so much more equipped. I’m learning so much from each podcast, and I just started listening. Pam, I love how you never make people feel dumb for the way they think through a problem, and your genuine interest of how they solved even the simplest steps. It shows a humbleness that we often don’t see with people who are great with numbers. When I was younger, often the teacher would explain how to do a problem mostly through memorization and nothing on relational numeracy. I could do math well on paper and I got good grades, but I’ve realized my numeracy skills and strategies lacked. For fear of being slow to answer or thinking about a problem the wrong way I often didn’t answer the questions to build my own math knowledge. On tests, I would just basically do “long” algorithms to get the solutions with no real understanding of how they correlated with the numbers. I especially love the most recent “parent tips”. Giving my children time to answer, patience, and allowing them to take ownership, so smart! I think because of my own baggage I thought the solutions to my problem was if only I had memorized better so I could say the problem faster. I have put that pressure on my children. Now, I realize it isn’t so much as speed as the relational numeracy. Personally, I’m more excited about solving math after learning from you both! Kim you often challenge me in ways I don’t think about answering a problem and I write your way down to see if I can gain some better math strategies! Thank you for this podcast!! Every math teacher or anyone wanting to improve their math skills should listen!

I’m a parent helping my child learn math. I’m learning a lot from the techniques and perspectives discussed. Pam and Kim are a great team, and funny too! Thank you for helping me become a pt math teacher for my son! :) great podcast!

With experience as an administrator, coordinator, and now back in the classroom, this podcast has taught me more than I ever learned in my college Math Methods course (yes, one course). Love it! Well done, Ladies! -Steven (the Wildcat Prof)

I’ve listened to this podcast for a few years now, and just when I think there are no more topics to cover, Pam and Kim, keep coming out with more and more great topics! One thing I most appreciate about every episode is the very personable and authentic dynamic between Pam and Kim. It feels like you’re in a room with you favorite colleagues chatting about math! Just when I think I have figured out one or two ways of thinking of a problem, one or both of them will then share such a different perspective or way of doing things that I had never even considered!! I truly appreciate how these episodes really stretch my own mathematical, thinking, gives me pause to think about the intentional ways that I should structure my own instructional practices, as well as ways of lifting up student thinking about mathematics. Thank you for making each episode, so engaging, inviting and most of all figure-out-able!!

Awesome content presented in ways that inspire and clarify.

I’m looking forward to challenging my 4th and 5th graders to look for creative ways to reason out problems with Math Strat Chats this year!

One of the best podcasts I’ve listened to when it comes to teaching math and helping students truly strategize and think. Short and sweet and easy to listen to on the way to work.

I’ve taught for 33 years and have many times been frustrated with the lack of numeracy foundation in high students. I have, you need is a great place to start!

I love listening to Pam and Kim every week! I teach 5th grade math and each podcast teaches me something new. Pam and Kim are so relatable and definitely help me to make math more figureoutable for my students! I have recommended your podcast to anyone who will listen!

I’m pretty good at math, and over time, I sort of figured out a few of the strategies that Pam and Kim teach on my own. But at no point did I have any way to model what I was thinking…until I found this podcast! Had these models and strategies been taught when I was in elementary, middle, and high school, not only would it have made me better, but it would have helped SO MANY of my friends who thought that math was only rote memorizable and not figure-out-able!!!! And, now that I teach math, I try to incorporate thinking and reasoning over algorithms and rote memory at every opportunity I get.

I listen to multiple math podcasts, but Math is Figureoutable is one I NEVER miss. I have binge listened to MANY of the past podcasts I missed before discovering it, and now I never skip my weekly listen to the latest episode. I always walk away with a new insight or deeper understanding that will make me a better math teacher and a better mathematician! There are even powerful episodes I have listened to more than once. Don’t miss out! You will always be glad you tuned in!

Started following the podcast after seeing Pam on Christina Tondevold’s Math Summit. Though recently retired from teaching interventions for 5th-8th graders, I still volunteer in a 5th grade class and do some work with a rising 3rd grader. Listened to Episode163 during my 4.5 mile walk yesterday & heard your plea for reviews. I love what you & Kim are doing (and also follow Howie on Twitter) and will continue to spread the word that “Math-is-FigureOutAble!”

So, I have been listening since your beginning. I teach fourth grade and have believed for a long time that, as you say, math is figure-out-able, but teaching it to a wide range of learners is very difficult, especially when they enter my class disinterested, lacking confidence, and believing that math is anything but figure-out-able. I believe that learning, for teachers as well as students, takes experiences over time, so I keep working at it. I haven’t written a review up to this point because I don’t review anything, but the numbers (550,000 downloads and only 146 reviews) moved me to action. Thank you for doing your part to help teachers give students a more authentic math experience. BTW I was born on 7-28-56. I was meant to love math!

I love this podcast and recommend it to all of the math teachers I work with at our small school. Over the summer, my husband a computer engineer, has started listening with me too! Keep up the excellent work!

I love listening to both of you, even though I am no longer teaching. I am still learning through you. Some think I’m crazy that I am still listening to teach a podcast but some habits are really hard to break and you two are one of those habits. Math is Figure-Out-Able.

Pam and Kim bring humor and realistic ideas to all math levels! I always take away a new idea and solidify existing math learning. I’m a veteran teacher, but new to math. I taught ELA for years and needed a change. Teaching math and science for me is that change! I was never “good” at math and with time Pam and Kim have given me confidence to be able to let the numbers dictate how I solve problems. My own number sense has increased with this podcast and I’m able to help kiddos at all levels. This is the podcast that all math teachers need to listen to!

I love this podcast and have already felt a change in my math teaching. Pam and Kim break it down in real-world situations and cover topics K-12. I suggest to anyone just finding this podcast to start at episode 156, literally called “Start Here.” Pam and Kim, you’re amazing, and you make my Tuesdays brighter!

These incredible women completely transformed my teaching! I knew what I was doing in my math class was not meaningful but I didn’t know what to do about it. I was fortunate enough to learn from them almost 9 years ago in their workshops and over several years. I’m so grateful for this podcast to continue my growth and I just love feeling like they’re still with me because they’re wonderful humans! Thank you for all you do!

I have listened to every episode and I learn something new every time! Thank you for sharing and making math more figureoutable! My brain (and subsequently my student’s brains) are getting required to truly understand math! Amazing!

I’ve listened to every episode! EVERY math teacher and anyone who has an opportunity to shape children’s lives needs to listen to this podcast.

Best math teacher podcast I’ve found!

This is an AMAZING podcast!! I love it so much and it really helps my 5th grade brain!!

I was listening to Episodes 24-27 where Pam discusses the different kinds of math students that are commonly found in math class and beyond. I felt exactly like the person who just wanted to understand math—I knew it had to be Figure-Out-Able since others were doing it but I just couldn’t ever see the connections and would ask why constantly. Ultimately, until I married my husband (an X) I just assumed I didn’t have the math gene. Since watching my husband play with numbers and homeschooling my kiddos I have discovered the wonder connections in math and can truthfully say it is enjoyable. And just for giggles, Pam, I am creative with math too, through sewing. Honestly, I’ve shared this podcast with many and highly recommend you listen to it

Thank you Kim and Pam for helping me love doing math and teaching math to my scholars. Doing ‘real math’ is the missing piece. As I begin to play with the relationship with numbers myself, I am becoming a better teacher. Watching my scholars eyes light up as things ‘pop’ for them is why I teach. Keep on spreading the message that math truly is figuroutable. We are listening!

This podcast has transformed my thinking about math teaching and learning. Pam and Kim’s enthusiasm is contagious. Every educator should listen and learn!

I continue to learn every episode! I just wish that I could watch Kim teach and then sit with Kim and Pam to talk about how I’m going to take what I learned and implement it in my classroom. My 6th Grade students thank you 😀