Why Is It The Best One: A Twist On “Which One Doesn’t Belong”

Alexis Wolf, Region 4 Director

Are you looking for a new way to use a high-quality instructional routine in your class? If you haven’t used it before, the original routine of “Which One Doesn’t Belong?” is a fantastic way to engage your students in reasoning mathematically. Present four items or images to your students and ask them which one they think doesn’t belong and why. You can find a plethora of items on this website. 

Now, if you are like me and have used this method multiple times in your classroom, maybe you are ready for something new. I had the pleasure of attending a session run by Howie Hua (who will also be our keynote speaker at our Spring Conference this year) and he presented this new twist:

  1. First ask for a volunteer. That person will stand in the middle of the room. 
  2. Divide the rest of the classroom into four groups. I just sectioned them and sent them to respective corners of the room. 
  3. I then showed the four items from a WODB problem. Students in their groups were then given the prompt to convince the person in the middle why their image/item/equation/graph was the best out of all four. I gave groups about 1 to 2 minutes to do this. 
  4. Groups chose a speaker that presented their reasoning to the person in the middle. The person in the middle then chose the winner and had to give their reasoning.
  5. Bonus: If you have a microphone (I personally have a few karaoke microphones for fun), have students use those as a talking piece and to amplify their voice! 

Try out this twist in your class and let me know how it goes!