Eureka! Coaching the Aha Moments

In a legendary description of discovery, Archimedes supposedly shouted, “Eureka! (Greek for “I have found it!”) when he stepped into a bathtub and discovered the principle of buoyancy. Although classrooms may not be the setting for legendary discoveries, students (and teachers) discover insights that are new to them every day. While coaching this week, I capitalized on “Eureka” moments to set the stage for constructive conversations.
 
This week, I had the good fortune to observe lessons in eight elementary school classrooms. In all the classes, students had pent-up energy from inside recesses due to colder-than-usual temperatures, and teachers were a bit frazzled for the same reason. Still, there were times during every lesson where children’s brains were turning things over, figuring stuff out, and lighting up with answers. So I started each debrief coaching conversation by asking about those moments.
 
I asked Amber, “When was an aha moment during that lesson – a time when you really saw a light bulb go on?” Amber recalled when, in her fifth-grade lesson on the comprehension strategy of clarifying, one student, Raimi, piped up, “I knew we wouldn’t find the answers in that passage we already read – that’s why we had questions in the first place!” Amber replied that sometimes we might miss something while we were reading, even if the answer was there. Raimi nodded as understanding dawned.
 
Maribeth remembered that some kindergarten students learned new vocabulary when their phonics practice included the word “trek,” along with a context-rich image. The first-graders who figured this out beamed as they shared.
 
During Harper’s second-grade lesson on landforms, she spontaneously included a physical example: When students were struggling to understand what a peninsula was, she became the landmass; with her arms at her side, she was an island, and the “fish” (a designated student) could swim all around her. When she touched the desk with her arm to close off the “waterway,” the “fish” could not get through.  
 
During Sarah’s first-grade lesson on computational fluency, I saw students working diligently but hadn’t noticed any especially-perky “ah-hah!” moments, so I modified my conversation-starter question, just to make sure she was at ease. I asked, “When did you see the most thinking going on during this lesson?” Sarah started off talking about the “game” routine that they used for most of the lesson, with students writing answers on their magic slates. But her voice trailed off as she replayed the scenario in her mind. “I guess I saw the most thinking when students were working on their exit ticket,” she reconsidered.
 
I could go on with four more examples, but you get the idea. The important things were the conversations that followed.
 
When Amber shared one student’s aha about clarifying, I emphasized what an important insight that was, since one of the main purposes of the clarifying strategy is to send readers back into the text for answers. Amber decided to revisit that moment the next day, because she realized she’d passed over it too quickly as an aside to Raimi, without drawing other students into the conversation. Going forward, she would be more explicit about the purposes and applications of comprehension strategies.
 
Maribeth’s recognition of vocabulary learning led to a conversation about the value of the images she had added to phonics slides. I affirmed her practice of having students decide which of the three images matched the decoded word, and I asked her about the sequence of her routine. She described how students would pull down letter tiles on their own phonics boards to form the word displayed, then together they would blend the word, then say which image it matched. I said I’d noticed that one time, she reversed the order, having them choose the image before whole-class blending. “Which sequence do you think worked better?” I asked. Then I saw a light-bulb moment for Maribeth, as she realized that students did more independent thinking, and were more engaged, when she had them choose the picture first. She decided to permanently switch up her routine.
 
When Harper and I talked about her peninsula demo, I asked why she thought that example stuck with students so well. She then told me about a lesson last week with a similarly-effective spontaneous example. She decided that the effectiveness of these examples hinged on her responsiveness to students’ confusion and the fact that there was activity involved. I applauded her responsiveness and her determination to include physical, active examples that were planned for, as well.
 
After rewinding the lesson and remembering that there was a lot of off-task behavior during the “game” portion of the lesson, Sarah decided to tighten up the routine and make the steps visible for students by creating an anchor chart.
 
Asking teachers to recall students’ “Eureka!” moments helped them recognize practices that had worked so that they could hone these practices and take them forward. Using this question as a conversation opener set a positive, asset-based tone for our conversation. It’s something I’ll use again. That’s my “Eureka!” coaching moment for this week!
 
This week, you might want to take a look at:

16 Variations on Think-Pair-Share:
 
https://www.edutopia.org/article/think-pair-share-variations-16-ways-up-your-game
 
 
Art as a bridge for multilingual students:
 
https://www.edsurge.com/news/2025-01-22-art-saved-my-life-when-i-was-a-student-now-it-s-helping-my-multilingual-learners
 
 
Books with resilient characters:
 
http://www2.ncte.org/blog/2017/10/finding-mentor-books-inspire-resiliency/
 
Spread positivity – morale boosts for teachers:
 
https://www.edutopia.org/article/weekly-morale-boost-teachers
 
 
Reminder to talk “with” students, not “at” them (keep watching…):
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Nyr1OizVo0
 
That’s it for this week. Happy Coaching!
 
Want more coaching tips? Check out my book, Differentiated Mentoring & Coaching in Education: From Preservice Teacher to Expert Practitioner, available from Teachers College Press!  I’m so excited to share it with you! You can use the code: JAN2025 for 20% off. Click  here  and I’ll email you the free Book Group Study Guide that includes questions, prompts, and activities you can use as you share the book with colleagues.  I hope you’ll love this book as much as I loved making it for you!