As Pam went off with the students, I circulated around the room to check in
on the rest of the class. Early in the year, Pam and I established a system where she
would take notes on what her students were doing in an activity based on the
mathematical emphases in the lesson. To help her with a focus and a structure, I
would identify what I wanted her to pay attention to on an observation sheet,
which listed the names of all students. She could then make comments beside each
name as she observed them. This also helped her focus on the important mathe-
matical goals of the lessons.
Once a lesson was over, we would use part of our preparation period to debrief
what happened. Pam’s input was a big help because I couldn’t always observe the
boys each day. She would also observe other students if her students were not in
the room. Having this second set of eyes helped me with my ongoing assessment
and planning for the next lesson. Her interactions with the other students not
only increased her knowledge of the range of strategies that students develop but
also strengthened our collaboration.
When I was making the rounds in the classroom, I went over to see how the
boys were doing. Robert was diligently constructing the first building and system-
atically recording the information on the table with Pam’s assistance. Every time
he finished a row, he would count all of the cubes starting from the first floor and
then write the total on the table. This is exactly how I expected him to approach
this task, and I was glad to see him make the connection between the physical ob-
ject and abstract table.
It was also great to see how well Pam worked with him. As he finished a step,
she would simply ask, “Now what do you have to do?” or “What should you do
next?” This gave Robert ownership of the activity while still providing support.
Steven’s first table was completed perfectly and he began working on the sec-
ond building (5 rooms per floor). As I watched him work, I saw him build the first
floor of 5 rooms. Once he saw how many cubes were on the first floor (5), he be-
gan writing the counting-by-5s pattern down the second column on the table. I
expected this much of him because he knew many counting patterns and would
have no trouble continuing one. However, he was not constructing a building and
this worried me. I wondered how much he was getting out of the lesson.
After he got to the fifth floor, he began to write a 3. This wasn’t surprising be-
cause he wasn’t paying attention to the numbers in the first column. He also had
no building to refer to. For him, it was an exercise in counting patterns. So I ex-
pected him to write 30 because it would be the next number in the pattern.
However, he quickly erased the 3 and wrote 50.
MICHAEL: Now why did you write 50?
STEVEN: Mrs. Reil said to double the last number.Collaborative Planning