As a teacher, I strive to give students the opportunity to have an aha moment. Today it happened not only for them but me as well. Today, I introduced the students to Vocabulary.com. I set up classes and had them join our virtual class, and then I assigned a digital vocab list from F-451 part 1. Not a big deal right? I pretty much let the kids loose to play the “vocab game”. The game consists of questions and answers in different forms and students get instant feedback on whether or not they selected the correct answer. The program (free) assesses their true understanding of words using antonyms, synonyms, pictures, fill in the blank, etc. There are achievements and badges that students receive for accomplishing different “levels” or task throughout the process. The aha moment happened when for a solid three minutes the kids did not say a word to each other and zoned in on learning the difficult words from F-451. I walked around the room and watched as students contemplated the correct answers, read the solutions to incorrect answers, and engaged in learning new words and their meaning. They were enjoying the process of learning. This made my day. It was fantastic.
Sometimes as a teacher we have grand ideas about a lesson, or project, or specific activity. We think it will be amazing. Many times, things don’t go the way they are supposed to, and it doesn’t quite work out that way. Today was not one of those days. Today was a day of brilliance. Thank you, students.