More about AHA Moments

An Aha Moment, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, is a moment of sudden realization, inspiration, insight, recognition, or comprehension. But the question is,
Why would this be the content of a keynote speech I presented today at the South Carolina Council of Teachers of Mathematics (SCCTM) Annual State Conference?

brain activity

It’s simple. SCCTM’s Annual Conference is filled with so many incredible sessions that explore a wide variety of topics. The most challenging part of the day is selecting the sessions to attend and knowing there are so many other really good sessions.

However, none of these sessions will bring full results unless the information shared during them impacts the lives of students. I believe this and it’s why I set aside time during every training session to share ways for teachers to cultivate a classroom atmosphere that encourages aha moments.

There are many good sources for learning more about aha moments. To keep this blog post from being way too long, I’ve included some key points and the links to the entire source. All of them are well worth the few minutes it takes to read them. Each of them would also be excellent read alouds for your whole class as you help them fine-tune their recognition and use of aha moments.

Maximizing Aha Moments

Bruce Dorminey’s article for Forbes.com, “Maximizing Those Aha Moments Still Key to Our Future,” describes what insight is and the difference between insight and intuition.

Intuition is use of patterns we’ve already learned while insights are the discovery of new patterns. With an insight you don’t necessarily have a feeling that there’s something there.  It hits you without warning.  It shifts the story that you’re telling yourself, whereas intuition uses the patterns that you already know or have.  An insight suggests new patterns.

“Aha!” moments hit us all.  Although they can range from new ways to tie a shoelace to ideas for the latest smart phone, acting upon such “insights” remains key to our collective future. Read all of Bruce Dorminey’s article.

Barbara Morris, President of LaserImage, shares how to maximize your aha moments in her article, “The Art of Leaning into Your Aha Moment.” Even though she is focusing on aha moments in a corporate setting, the ideas are definitely applicable in an education setting.

A lot of great ideas start as scrawled notes on bar napkins. And a lot of those same great ideas are tossed away and never become what they could. People are scared to take risks, they don’t have enough money to turn their idea into a reality, or they’re too busy to transform themselves from followers into innovators. Just because you face challenges, though, doesn’t mean you can’t turn a big idea into a bigger reality. Read all of Barbara Morris’ article.

The Science of Aha Moments

For those readers who are becoming skeptical at this point, there is scientific proof that aha moments exist. Aha moments can be seen inside the brain. WebMD.com describes a scientific study in which researchers found an increased activity in a small part of the right lobe of the brain when the participants reported creative insight during problem solving. Little activity was detected in this area during non-insight solutions. Web MD’s Scientists Explain the Science of Aha Moments

If you want to read more about scientific evidence for aha moments, the study by Kounios and Beeman is fascinating!

In a series of experiments, Kounios and Beeman found that volunteers who experienced insight experienced a distinctive spark of high gamma activity that would spike one-third of a second before volunteers consciously arrived at an answer. Additionally, the flash of gamma waves stemmed from the brain’s right hemisphere—an area involved in handling associations and assembling parts of a problem.

Gamma activity indicates a constellation of neurons binding together for the first time in the brain to create a new neural network pathway. This is the creation of a new idea. Immediately following that gamma spike, the new idea pops into our consciousness, which we identify as the Aha! Moment. More about Kounios & Beeman’s Aha Moment Experiments

Educators and Aha Moments

As an educator who believes in giving students time for information to absorb, Daniel Goleman’s post, “Maximize Your Aha Moment,” really hit home.

The pre-work for the gamma spike includes defining the problem, immersing yourself in it, and then letting it all go. It’s during the let-go period that the gamma spike is most likely to arise and along with that the “aha” or “light bulb over the head” moment. Read all of Daniel Goleman’s article on maximizing your aha moments.

“Reassessing the Aha Moment” by Janet Rae-Dupree really addresses the role that the classroom teacher plays in the facilitating of aha moments.

…as soon as you dig into what happened five minutes before that magic moment, or a day, or a week, or a month,” he said, “you realize that there is a much more complicated story in the background.” That more complicated story most often begins and ends with a determined, hard-working and open-minded person trying, and failing, to find a solution to a given problem.
It’s not that these magical moments of epiphany don’t happen. In small ways, they happen all the time. But they are not nearly as important as what the innovator did before – or ultimately does after – the magic light bulb goes on. “Reassessing the Aha Moment” by Janet Rae-Dupree

What if a teacher or professor just simply believes in a student and shares his or her enthusiasm with their students? It changed the life of Sharon Matola, known as the “Zoo Lady” to over 12,000 children who visit her and Belize’s only zoo for orphaned animals that she founded in 1983. She doesn’t remember all the details of her inspiration, but she does remember the power of belief in your students,

“My professor told me I was smart. He was the only professor who said that.”

Read Sharon Matola’s story and others who experienced aha moments in education.

The “How to” of Aha Moments

Dr. Marcia Reynolds, in “Creating the Aha Moment,” lists the following Brain Tips for creating aha moments.

Brain Tip 1. Do something else. Give your brain a chance to restructure itself, letting your right hemisphere access your long term memory to bring a new solution into view.

Brain Tip 2. Give it a rest. If you can, take a nap or put the problem away for a day to let your brain sleep on it. While you sleep, the hippo campus goes to work connecting data with knowledge in new ways.

Brain Tip 3. Have fun. While you are eating that ice cream cone or watching a funny movie, your middle brain is unconsciously looking at your problem from different angles.

Brain Tip 4. Work with your coach. An experienced coach is well trained to ask you the question or provide the metaphor that breaks through your frame of thinking. You literally look at the problem from a new angle.

Learn more about how to create aha moments.

Dr. Bruce Johnson describes the failures of schools to cultivate creativity. He discusses the theories of Jeffrey Selingo, editorial director of The Chronicle of Higher Education, who encourages teachers to break the traditional teaching practice of memorization and regurgitation. Instead, students should be completing projects that require creativity and application of the knowledge they’ve gained.

Dr. Johnson also lists some ways to tap into your inner creative self.

1. Know When to Work and When to Stop
When you feel the need for a break that’s an indication you either need an alternate perspective or additional information. And research shows you are likely to get the insight or “aha” moment once you step away from the project or problem.

2. Tap Into Your Imagination
You can synthesize experience; literally create it in your own imagination. The human brain cannot tell the difference between an ‘actual’ experience and an experience imagined vividly and in detail.” Walt Disney said “if you can dream it, you can do it.” That forms the basis for creativity, being able to dream and then put your imagination to work.

3. Develop a Mindset for Creativity
This is probably the one barrier that prevents students from learning to develop their creative capacity, a limiting self-belief. The statement, “I’m not a creative person” can limit your possibilities. You can train yourself to be creative simply by allowing time to use your imagination.

Train yourself to think more creatively.

Final Thoughts on Aha Moments

Oprah.com defines aha moments as…a moment of clarity, a defining moment where you gain real wisdom-wisdom you can use to change your life. Whether big or small, funny or sad, they can be surprising and inspiring. Each one is unique, deeply personal, and worth sharing.

Would you like to read more aha moments? Oprah.com has many aha moments from many different perspectives.

You still want more? Public Radio International has aha moments you can listen to or read.

Daniel Goleman found that nurturing the creative insight is vital. When a person offers a novel idea, instead of the next person who speaks shooting it down—which happens all too often in organizational life—the next person who speaks must be an ‘angel’s advocate,” someone who says, ‘that’s a good idea and here’s why.”

I hope this is what occurs in schools when teachers and principals have a novel idea that will help students. I know our world will improve if every teacher provides space for students to have “aha” moments. Along the way, these teachers will have aha moments, too!

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away. —Maya Angelou

Bonus? Aha Moment Slideshow from Tabor Rotation Institute participants.