The Debriefing Meeting
The following Monday, we met to discuss how the small-group discussion un-
folded. This was an opportunity for Karen to point out her successes and chal-
lenges while providing us with another perspective and set of insights about the
children’s thinking. We then took what we learned and planned adjustments for
Karen’s next meeting with my students.
KAREN: So, basically, it went really well. I was really impressed with their
thinking. We started out doing a sentence at a time, as we had talked about
in our meeting. Then we did the KWC, and I was pleased that they made
use of this strategy to help them organize the information. I was surprised
at the way they worked straight through the ; they didn’t need to discuss
it at all. They were just like “Oh, we’re going to have to divide and that will
tell you how many cars are silver.” I didn’t even bother to stop at that point
to draw a representation because they seemed to see it already in their
heads. The other thing they also knew immediately was that we had to take
the 35 silver cars away from the total of 315 cars. The second part with the
ratio of 3 to 2 was a little trickier, so we got out the cubes. And again it
didn’t take as long as I thought it would for them to notice that it was
groups of 5.
MARTA: So they did notice it was groups of 5?
KAREN: Right. I think I had to prompt them and say, “So how many are in
the groups?” One student noticed it right away and helped the others see
that it was groups of 5 and that they needed to see how many of these groups
of 5 would go into 280. It was nice to see Nina becoming more involved and
speaking out, because she is usually so quiet. Then that was where it got in-
teresting. Once they figured out there were 56 groups of 5, the 3-to-2 ratio
confused them.
MARTA: Did anyone actually articulate that it was 56 groups of 5 that were
composed of black and white cars? Did anyone actually say it like that, that
you recall?
KAREN: They knew that they were the black and white, and they were very
clear that the silver was out of the way and taken care of. It became an is-
sue of what to do with the 56 groups. It took some doing.
MARTA: Do you remember what questions you asked to guide them when
they got to that 56, or were they just talking among themselves?
KAREN: They were really just talking among themselves at this point. It has
gotten to the point where four of them are pretty verbal and play off of each
other. But, as some of them were moving forward, one student kind of threw
his hands into the air and said, “This is over my head,” and another really1
9WORKINGCOLLABORATIVELY