Capturing the Elusive Aha! Moment

After years of sightings, I have finally caught it! Whenever Pamela has a moment of discovery, a big smile grows on her face. Sometimes, she even giggles. I call it her Aha! moment. Today, I captured it on video while filming us doing math for an RDI objective.

Pamela's task was to look at part of a shape and then draw the whole, given the fraction representing the part. All of the shapes had either 30, 45, 60 or 90 degree angles so that all she needed to complete the shapes were her drawing tools (drawing board, T-square, 30-60 triangle, and 45-45 triangle). On the third problem, Pamela had to draw another trapezoid, given the trapezoid representing a half to make a hexagon. I sat there and patiently watched for about twenty seconds because I could tell she was thinking. I gave her no hints and, immediately after her aha moment, she proceeded to draw the answer with absolute confidence in her understanding.