I think ... doesn't belong because ...

Which One Doesn't Belong?




Last year, I worked with the English Learner TOSA (Teacher on Special Assignment) in my district to create a session for our teachers that combined Building Academic Language strategies with instructional routines. We created a template for teachers to plan that includes anticipating student responses.

The template includes space for planning sentence frames and conversation supports for students. When teachers anticipate the language they want students to use, they can create scaffolds for students that are learning academic language (all of them!). Our template also includes a spot for a "pairing plan." Intentionally pairing students can serve many purposes. Visibly random pairing builds a classroom culture where everyone can learn from everyone else. Pairings based on English language proficiency levels can provide a comfortable place for a conversation (similar levels) or a language model (pairing a more proficient student with a less proficient one). The template provides a place to make these decisions BEFORE a lesson. I believe collaboratively planning a routine like "which one doesn't belong?" will improve outcomes for students and build teacher capacity to plan more intentionally even if they aren't writing it all down in the template every time.

We shared this routine with teachers in all of the elementary buildings in our district at staff meetings and on professional development days. I then went to each building and offered to model it. About 80% of the classrooms invited me in. Some of them wanted to see Number Talks (explained in my Number Talks and #ObserveMe blog post), but many of them asked for a "Which One Doesn't Belong?" or "that math puzzle," as one called it.

We shared the link to the bank of math examples: wodb.ca. This routine isn't just for math and we compiled ideas that could be used in other subjects, too: Google Doc.

For Dr. Seuss' birthday, I made one with book covers (Slideshow).


I'm looking forward to sharing this routine and our planning template with teachers at conferences this fall (presentation). Let me know what you think! How do you use this routine? What are your favorites?