Ep 316: CAMT 2026

We love being with mathematics educators! In this episode Pam and Kim recount their experiences at CAMT 2026.

Talking Points:

• Feeling at home at CAMT
• Experiencing math at conferences
• Bullding relationships at conferences
• Should a goal be to make math 'easier'?
• Real world math from real questions from students  
• Language matters
• Explicit vs Inquiry

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Transcript

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Pam  0:03  
Hey, fellow math-ers. Welcome to the podcast where Math is Figure-Out-Able. I'm Pam Harris, a former mimicker turned math-er. 

Kim  0:13  
And I'm Kim Montague, 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  0:21  
Y'all, we know that algorithms are amazing human achievements, but they are terrible teaching tools because mimicking step-by-step procedures actually traps students into using less sophisticated reasoning than the problems are intended to develop. In this podcast, we teach math-ing, building relationships with your students and grappling with mathematical relationships. We invite you to join us to make math more figure-out-able. Hey, we did that really well.

Kim  0:48  
I am so impressed with us. 

Pam  0:49  
Okay, I think it had something to do with the fact that we are at CAMT, the Texas State Math Conference, the Conference for the Advancement of Mathematics Teaching. And Kim and I did two sessions...

Kim  0:50  
Two sessions together.

Pam  0:55  
I was going to say two co-sessions. Two co-leading. Two co-presenting.

Kim  1:04  
Co-hosting.

Pam  1:05  
Oh, for heaven's sakes. We did them together, and both times when we sort of introduced ourselves, we did this podcast intro from memory. And here we sit in the exhibit hall at CAMT. We did it from memory, so I think it had something to do witht he fact that we practiced it. 

Kim  1:18  
Well, and it's funny because we did a session on fluency, and we joke because we are not very fluent at our podcast intro. Which is terrible because we have done it 300 times. 

Pam  1:28  
Yeah, but we read it. 

Kim  1:29  
But we use it. We have a piece of paper that's our crutch. We should take that away. We should use it more often.

Pam  1:34  
Should we, though? Is that a time where we have to have it memorized?

Kim  1:37  
Not something we need to memorize.

Pam  1:39  
Okay, so we are CAMT. It is a conference in Texas that is... We're very fond of this conference. We've been coming here for, I mean forever. I have done CAMT... I should count one day, but over 20 years, in a row. I have never missed except one year when I went to Australia. 

Kim  1:54  
For a good reason.

Pam  1:55  
And, you know, you can't move the International Math Congress. So, yeah. Yeah, we like CAMT. We like to come to CAMT. We like to present. I'm doing six total sessions. 

Kim  2:04  
Yeah.

Pam  2:05  
Two with Kim. I did one with Liesl McConchie. And then three all by myself. 

Kim  2:08  
Yeah. There's lots to present on. 

Pam  2:10  
Super exciting that I get to be in the big arena today. I will tell you, I'm actually a little bit nervous about that. 

Kim  2:16  
Oh, it's going to be great. 

Pam  2:16  
Big arena. Big. Yeah. 

Kim  2:18  
Yeah.

Pam  2:18  
Yeah, it's great. I'm thrilled to be able to share the message that Math is Figure-Out-Able and help teachers know how to make math more figure-out-able in their classrooms. 

Kim  2:26  
Yeah. 

Pam  2:27  
Alright. 

Kim  2:27  
And it's always great. We love conferences, just in general. Getting together with other educators, teachers, and leaders to get to share our thinking and our ideas, and sit down and probably... What do you think? We love sessions. Love sitting and learning. But also the conversations at lunches and breakfast. Like really deeper conversations about wrestling with ideas and collaborating. It's just great work.

Pam  2:54  
And relationship. There's sort of something about physical. Like, we do a lot on Zoom.

Kim  2:58  
Yeah.

Pam  2:59  
And it's wonderful. We can do things with people all around the world, and at different times. There is something about physically breaking bread together, physically being in a session together. 

Kim  3:07  
Yeah.

Pam  3:08  
We really appreciate it. Y'all, if you haven't been to a professional session. Excuse me. Professional conference lately, I'd put that on your radar. In fact, I'll just give a little shout out to NCSM. I'm actually wearing my NCSM... What am I? 

Kim  3:20  
Badge, a name badge. You are the 

Pam and Kim  3:22  
Regional team leader for Southern 2. 

Pam  3:25  
I never know that. I don't feel I do a great job at it, but I am happy to volunteer for a professional organization that helps us in our profession because we are professionals. 

Kim  3:34  
Yeah. 

Pam  3:34  
Yeah. 

Kim  3:35  
One particularly fun thing about this conference because it's our home state is at the end of some of our sessions. Probably happens to you at your individual sessions too. But at the end of our joint sessions, people came up and said, "I was 20 years ago in the district you worked with." Or, "20 years ago I saw you at a CAMT session."

Pam  3:55  
Kimberly, I had a student from the University of Texas when I taught at UT 15 years ago.

Kim  4:00  
Oh, my gosh.

Pam  4:01  
And she said, "I was your student." And I was like, "Oh, my gosh. What are you doing now?" And we took a picture. And, oh, it was just... You know, you see your students grow up. And she's a teacher, loving it, doing the thing. Yeah, super fun relationship. Super, like you said, see teachers that we worked with a long time ago. I've met teachers from Abilene that I worked with, I don't know how many years ago. Really, really fun. That is one of the things we like. Yeah. 

Kim  4:23  
Okay, so I want to start off today by saying there's been kind of a theme for me at this conference. And I don't know if it's this particular conference or if it's just the direction we're heading. But I feel like maybe I lamented a bit last year, or two years ago, maybe three years ago. I don't know how long we've been doing. 

Pam  4:41  
You were sad about something?

Kim  4:43  
Yeah.

Pam  4:44  
Okay. 

Kim  4:44  
Like, a little... I don't know what the word is. I'll describe, and you can find me the word. But just the idea that there's so much to talk about in math education. There's so many things. There's so many layers. There's so much to worry about as a teacher. It's a big job.
But that I was lamenting a little bit about how often we go into sessions and we're not actually doing some math together. And it doesn't... Like, that is not me saying that the content is like way more important than everything else because there's so much that's important. But at this conference, almost every session that I went into, I was doing math
and talking about pedagogy. Or doing math and talking about engaging students. Or, you know, talking about trauma. And like, so fantastic to see those coupled together because that is exactly the work that teachers do. It's not one or the other. They're in concert. So, it was just... You know, and I saw that happen, and I don't know if it's kind of organically where people are headed. Or...

Pam  5:50  
Is it possible you chose better sessions? You're a better session chooser. No, I don't know.

Kim  5:55  
Maybe I've grown. Maybe I've grown. That's definitely true. I don't know, I just feel like it was really nice to sit in some sessions and do some work, and then unpack. 

Pam  6:05  
Yeah, yeah, that's really nice. That is really nice.

Kim  6:06  
I really enjoy that at this conference.

Pam  6:09  
I'm glad. I'm super glad. 

Kim  6:10  
Yeah.

Pam  6:10  
Yeah, I would concur. I've also had that experience. And if you've listened to this podcast at all, you know how important we think it is to experience mathematics together, so that we can come to some common understandings of what it means to math. What are the mental actions of math-ing? 

Kim  6:26  
Yeah. 

Pam  6:26  
Yeah, nice. 

Kim  6:27  
One of the other things that I saw. And this happens for you, I know, because, as you just mentioned, that you, you know, do many sessions. And I think that's important because the work you do is, you know, you have some work and some books about developing mathematical reasoning, and then we've done some work to write Problem String books, and then we've done some work to write Foundations for Strategies, and so there's kind of different messages. I mean, they're cohesive, and they work in concert with each other. But there's a different tact. Alison Mello.

Pam  6:57  
Hey, Alison.

Kim  6:58  
Hey. 

Pam  6:58  
Whoo, shoutout. 

Kim  6:59  
You know, she does a lot of work in a lot of areas. But Math Workshop is one of the things she does. And when I was looking through sessions, I noticed that she had a part one, part two, part three, part four. Did you notice that?

Pam  7:10  
I did not.

Kim  7:11  
And so, one of the things she said was, "Last year I did a session. Just kind of a general session. And people said I need more of that because there are just so many layers to Math Workshop." And so, when she built her schedule for this year, she dove deep on one thing. And then the next session or, you know, couple hours later, she dove deep on another session. And it just really got me thinking about the idea of when we do professional development. And as we work with leaders, this happens. How much do I do? And I want to get it all in. And we've talked about this with our leaders in our coaching program that you can only get so much done at one time, and then it just goes through somebody's head. You can't go deep.

Pam  7:51  
You get overwhelmed, overloaded. Or, you know, you have to kind of start over because some new people join in.

Kim  7:58  
Yeah.

Pam  7:58  
You can only go so deep with a group. Yeah, sure.

Kim  8:00  
And the nuance and the details really matter. And, you know, props to the CAMT organizing committee that they would say it's worth having lots of sessions that work together. 

Pam  8:11  
Yeah.

Kim  8:11  
I thought that was really nicely done. 

Pam  8:14  
Props to CAMT organizing and the CAMT board, just in general. 

Kim  8:17  
Yeah, this is a huge conference.

Pam  8:18  
Y'all put on a class conference. You really do. 

Kim  8:22  
Yeah.

Pam  8:22  
Nice. 

Kim  8:22  
What else? 

Pam  8:23  
So, one of the things that I've been thinking about is there's a couple... little less sessions I went to, and a little bit more people that I met and kind of interacted with... But said some things about, you know, we really should make this easier. You know like, maybe, "The thing I do is, I can make it easy." Or "We should... easy." And I kind of heard this "easy" word. So, maybe this is really brief. I'll just mention it. We're not really about "easy".

Kim  8:48  
Right.

Pam  8:48  
Were suggesting that teaching... You just said a minute ago. Teaching is hard. Like, it's a lot of interconnected things, and you are going, and you are reacting in the moment. What we want to do is help everybody realize that Math is Figure-Out-Able. 

Kim  9:01  
Yeah. 

Pam  9:01  
And that's different than easy.

Kim  9:03  
Yeah. 

Pam  9:04  
Yeah, just that small comment. I just been thinking about that. 

Kim  9:06  
Well, we used this before. The analogy of lifting weights. That the idea is to build the person lifting weights. It doesn't help to lighten the load. It doesn't help to make the bar easier because then you're not growing.

Pam  9:19  
Yeah. 

Kim  9:19  
And really, we want...

Pam  9:21  
Let's do fewer exercises, and that's easier. 

Kim  9:23  
It's not helping anybody. 

Pam  9:23  
...build any muscle. Speaking of muscle, Vanessa Vakharia Sorry. 

Kim  9:28  
I mean, she's...

Pam  9:29  
Man, she... I don't... Well, I don't know why she was. She put her arm up, and I was like, "That is tone. There's some nice..." Can I say that on a podcast? 

Kim  9:36  
Sure. 

Pam  9:36  
Okay. 

Kim  9:37  
You can admire. 

Pam  9:37  
I've been lifting lately, so I'm just sort of aware.

Kim  9:41  
Well, I'm glad you mentioned her, because several of us on the team went to...

Pam  9:45  
Exercise? Several on the team exercise.

Kim  9:46  
We do, we do. We don't have those arms quite yet. We're getting there. Several of us went to her session with Robert Kaplinski. And this is one of the ones that I was mentioning.

Pam  9:56  
Two powerhouses together.

Kim  9:58  
In that session, we did an Open-Middle problem and talked about depth of knowledge a bit. But then also we got a chance to role play as a teacher. I'm going to get these four F's wrong. But Vanessa talks about fight, or flight, or fawn, or...

Pam  10:15  
Freeze.

Kim  10:16  
Freeze... Look at that.

Pam  10:17  
Bam!

Kim  10:18  
But they gave us some scenarios, and they gave us a student scenario where the student was going to act a certain way because of how they were responding. And then they gave us some suggestions of teacher interactions to help the student make a step forward, a small step. A small step. Because that is so real in our classroom. So real that kids are not going to respond the way that we hope they will all the time. And so, it was just again one of those scenarios.

Pam  10:44  
Don't give up on them, but don't push too hard.

Kim  10:45  
Right.

Pam  10:46  
What's the next nudge? That's nice. Yeah. Yeah.

Kim  10:48  
It was one of those scenarios where we did math, and then we talked about the reality of classrooms. 

Pam  10:53  
Yeah, lovely, lovely. 

Kim  10:55  
It was good. Maybe one of my favorite sessions was... 

Pam  11:00  
Mine?

Kim  11:00  
Always. 

Pam  11:01  
Just kidding. Sorry.

Kim  11:01  
Always.

Pam  11:02  
Just kidding. 

Kim  11:02  
Always. I did love doing some presenting together. That was fun. 

Pam  11:05  
Yeah, we did good. I think this time maybe our sessions went a little bit better than they sometimes do because I actually let you talk more, and I interrupted a little bit less. That was good. That was good. 

Pam and Kim  11:18  
(unclear). 

Pam  11:18  
I'm maturing. I'm maturing as a co-presenter. It's a good thing. 

Kim  11:22  
I love it. Love it. Zach Champagne's session.

Pam  11:26  
Ah, Zach. Good old Zach. 

Kim  11:27  
What was... His session was about real world math and the idea of thinking about what that actually means. And his daughter was in the session.

Pam  11:38  
Oh, fun.

Kim  11:39  
I know. And his wife. And the reason I sent his daughter first is because one of the pieces of math that we did was their family, when there's like a 3:33, or 2:22, or 5:55 they send a text thread to each other. Like an angel number. 

Pam  11:56  
They run into a number like that? 

Kim  11:58  
Yeah, and it's like, "Hey, 5:55." And they like acknowledge it. And I don't know if it's make a wish or whatever they do. And so, his older daughter, who moved out, still is part of this text thread. So, super cute. It's a way to connect, and they notice it. Yeah, so they were walking. He, and his wife, and their daughter were walking, maybe to a pizza or something, and it was 5:55, and they acknowledged it. And then his daughter said, "What about when it's 6:66? What would that be?" And then, so they talked about like what time would that be? And so, they were kind of, you know, hanging some stuff in their head. But anyway, the conversation went to what about 7:77? and 8:88? And we did some math at our table, and it went to 10:1010. And the group had a ton of conversation about unitizing and re-unitizing. And we all had different reasons justifying why we had different times. And it was such a rich mathematical conversation. And his point was real math comes from students. They're asking questions that is real to them, and our job is to facilitate those conversations. I'm butchering this. Sorry, Zach. Our job is to have these conversations where we are taking the interest and the ideas from students, and we are engaging in facilitating conversations from that. 

Pam  13:22  
And let me just say, I don't think he's suggesting that we then walk into our classroom and go, "Golly, I'm not going to have any plans today. I'm just going to, you know. Like, hey, whatever the kids do. We're going to dive into that." He's not saying that. He's suggesting that we're looking for moments that we can...that will go math-ing ways, right? 

Kim  13:40  
Yeah.

Pam  13:41  
Naturally intriguing. Like, he brought it. You guys didn't bring it up to you. He didn't come to the session going, "Sure, wonder where the participants are going to bring up." He said, "This is a thing."

Kim  13:49  
Here's a wonder. 

Pam  13:50  
Here's a wonder. And then he invited you into their wonder. In other words, I'm just sort of making sure people aren't hearing us say, We're going to haphazardly let whatever happens happens. No, we're going to know the landscape of learning. We're going to know the content, so that we can then take the important ideas and grab what's actually happening and move them forward. 

Kim  14:10  
Yeah.

Pam  14:11  
Does that make sense? 

Kim  14:11  
Yes. Yeah, yeah. 

Pam  14:12  
It could have been heard. He wasn't saying that. You weren't saying that. 

Kim  14:15  
Well, yeah. And so, an example he gave was, he, as a... I don't know what grade he was teaching at the time. He gave an example where he was using one of Graham Fletcher's Three-Act tasks, and he posed a scenario. He had some images that they showed. And the kids were asking questions, and they were sharing like how they solved the problem. But then a kid asked a question. Or the question was what information would you want to know? And the kid asked for information that he didn't have. And so, we were talking about the kid's question and the information that the kid wanted was probably actually more useful. And so, anyway.

Pam  14:50  
I mean, so it might be, and it might not be. And that's where we're going to help everybody get better content knowledge, so you can kind of run directions that are going to be the more helpful ones. 

Kim  15:00  
Yeah. It was a great session.

Pam  15:02  
Nice, nice. 

Kim  15:03  
What else? 

Pam  15:04  
Alright, so I'll throw out an idea. I've kind of been toying around with the idea of what would it look like to try to write something to parents? Or, really, to policy makers. And honestly, I have a little bit of concern about what that would be like. You know, I like my life the way it is. And I know that we've... You know, Jo Boaler has had some really... Unfortunate is not a strong enough word. Horrible things happen. 

Kim  15:27  
Terrible, mmhm.

Pam  15:28  
And I think it all stems from a misunderstanding. And I think I have something to offer to the conversation. Anyway, I was given some advice. Couple people that I really respect were saying, "You know, just be aware that if you do that, you kind of... As soon as you put your message out there, you really lose control of what you actually meant. And we can talk more about that, maybe later, Kim. But what I want to ask you right now is I'm kind of wondering. We've put our message out to, you know like, pretty large crowd in the small community of math educators. 

Kim  16:00  
Yeah.

Pam  16:01  
Do you think we've lost control of our message?

Kim  16:05  
That is a great question. I mean, the word "control" is interesting, right?

Pam  16:10  
Like, do you think we've been misunderstood? Do you think there are people out there that are like, "Oh, I do number strings." Okay, that's just me poking fun. 

Kim  16:17  
Yes. Yes. 

Pam  16:18  
We call them Problem Strings not number strings. Yeah.

Kim  16:20  
I mean, I think that's true in lots of conversations. Telephone. You can play telephone, right, a lot of times. And I think this is... Listen, this is why it's so important to ask questions and assume positive intent rather than go, "Oh, okay. This must be what they mean, and so, eh." Like, continue to ask questions. What do you mean by that? You are a fantastic asker of, "Say more. Give me examples. What do you mean by that?" 

Pam  16:49  
What does that look like? Paint that for me. Yeah, because so often... Oh, man. I'll just invite the other mathematics education leaders who are doing the presentations at conferences to like think about the language you're using, and give examples, and you know help us get more precise, so that we don't kind of use these hot button terms, and then everybody nods, and we think we're having a conversation. When in reality everybody kind of has these different ideas in their head about what some things mean. And anyway, I just really appreciate people who are thoughtful and who will engage in the conversation about language, and nuance, and examples, so that we can get better at understanding what each other actually means, so that we can move math education forward. 

Kim  17:35  
It's funny, because on my paper. You should see. I wrote all caps, LANGUAGE MATTERS. Because we only hear what people are saying through the lens that in our perspective that we have right now, and so if we hear what we think that they mean through our lens, and we aren't willing to ask more questions, and we aren't willing to dig in alongside them, and like beat out that conversation, then we're just often nodding because we think we're in agreement, or we shake our head internally and go, "Yep. I know what they mean, and I'm not into that."

Pam  18:10  
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think we're going to have some conversations in the near future about some things that we thought we knew what people meant. And actually, now that we've dug in, they meant something different. And sometimes it was great because we're actually in more agreement. And sometimes it was...

Kim  18:25  
Unfortunate. 

Pam  18:26  
Sad because we're actually in less agreement than we thought we were. But we're still willing to dive in. And then let's say we are in disagreement. Let's talk about why. 

Kim  18:34  
Yes.

Pam  18:34  
And what's behind what you're doing, and... Yes? 

Kim  18:38  
Well, I sat up big. Yeah. We never get to see each other when we're doing this, our body language.

Pam  18:43  
Yeah. I'm like, "Whoa, react, okay."

Kim  18:45  
Well, because even if we disagree in the conversation, we could maybe move the needle both ways. 

Pam  18:52  
Both ways.

Kim  18:52  
Like, there are some things that you and I are never going to like budge on. We have spent 20 years having these conversations, and we know what we believe based on the work that we've done. There are some things that we just, you know... It's what we know.

Pam  19:05  
I mean, this morning, we had a breakfast this morning with some really thoughtful people, and I walked out of there going, "Huh. I'm willing to reconsider that bit. That bit, I am. I don't know if I'm going to go where they're going, but I am willing to reconsider that bit." There, Albert, take that. We'll see. We'll see how far I go. Hey, one quick thing I wanted to throw out. I have an idea for a future podcast. I wondered what you think. 

Kim  19:28  
Oh, ask me on the podcast. I love that. 

Pam  19:30  
Yeah, there you go. So, I think we should do a short lesson. And maybe we don't do it, but we just sort of talk through the parts of it because you know, our podcasts are only, what, maybe 25 minutes max. So, you know, talk through a little bit of it. But then talk very specifically, very intentionally about when we were what people might call explicit.

Kim  19:53  
Yeah.

Pam  19:53  
And when we were more inquiry. And when and why? And there might even be moments where you might go, Ooh, I might have been more explicit there. And maybe I'll even cop to the fact that when I tried early in my career to be more inquiry because I didn't have any experience. Like all of us didn't learn that way. It took a minute for then for you to, I think, maybe get confidence to stand up to me.

Kim  20:16  
The nerve.

Pam  20:16  
Yeah. And then you were like, I actually don't think you're being focused enough.

Kim  20:22  
Ooh, I like that you said "focus". 

Pam  20:23  
That's a good word, isn't it? Yeah. And I had to like go, "Who do you think you are, little upstart?"

Kim  20:28  
25 year old. Yeah.

Pam  20:30  
Tiny third through fifth grade teacher telling me what you're... You know, I was a high school arrogant math teacher. And you were right. There were ways where I needed to tighten things and help kids focus. Maybe help kids generalize. 

Kim  20:42  
Yeah.

Pam  20:42  
Before we moved on and tried to use the thing that they were definitely building, and definitely developing, and definitely getting better at. But because we hadn't kind of cinched, we hadn't kind of... I say that, and I wonder

Kim  20:54  
We need examples. I'm in on that.

Pam  20:55  
Yeah, we need examples. Okay, so let's do that. I'll stop getting detailed, and we'll get it out later. 

Kim  20:59  
Okay, that sounds great. 

Pam  21:00  
Okay, anything else that you would add?

Kim  21:03  
Oh. Well, you know what's been the most fun is we have team members here with us. 

Pam  21:08  
Oh, yeah, totally fun.

Kim  21:08  
Amazing. We love spending time with our team. You know, we're remote, and so we don't get to see them as much, and so...

Pam  21:15  
Especially in person.

Kim  21:16  
Big hugs, and lots of great times, and conversations walking. 

Pam  21:20  
So, so we actually have Kourtney with us here, so we're just going to invite her to say, hey.

Kourtney  21:23  
Hi,

Kim  21:25  
We're missing Susan, but...

Pam  21:27  
And Kristi's at a booth. We've had a wonderful time meeting a lot of people and spreading the word that Math is Figure-Out-Able. Y'all, we really appreciate you as our colleagues on the podcast. Thanks for joining us. We just had a friend walk up to us while we're recording, and I was like, "We don't talk now. Wait, we're recording a podcast." But she's got Developing Mathematical Reasoning, K-2 in her hot little hands. So, Cassie, I think I'll be signing that book for you in a minute. I mean, if you want to. Cassie. Alright, Cassie, where are you from? 

Cassie  21:54  
Wiley, Texas. Birmingham Elementary. 

Pam  21:56  
Wiley, I know where Wiley is! Bam! Because that's not Abilene, but the other one. 

Kim  22:00  
Wrap it up, Pamela. 

Pam  22:02  
Okay. Anyway, alright, yes. Hey, y'all, thanks for joining us on the podcast. Thanks for joining us to make math more figure-out-able!