Sunday, March 3, 2013

Blog Post #7

Randy Pausch Last Lecture

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Dr. Pausch used many different teaching methods while teaching at Carnegie-Mellon. In his video Randy Pausch Last Lecture he discusses many of his techniques of teaching. One method he used was achieving your childhood dreams. Every child has dreams they want to achieve. Dr. Pausch has one dream he did more than achieve. It was Imagineering. He actually got to teach a class on this. His students loved this. They were assigned a project to create a virtual world. They completed this project within a few weeks. Dr. Pausch thought their work was absolutely great. He would have gave all of them A's if this took them all semester. He got advice from a fellow professor on what to do. This professor gave him very good advice. He told Dr. Pausch to tell his students their project was good but they could do better. This showed him just how great of work they could complete.

Another aspect Dr. Pausch used was brick walls. His theory was that brick walls were there for many reasons. The main reason being, they let us prove how badly we want things. He discovered this when he was graduating from Carnegie-Mellon. He wanted to work for Disney in Imagineering. Disney sent him back letters saying they did not have any open jobs available. This brick wall told Dr. Pausch to prove he really wanted this. He finally got the opportunity to work in Imagineering. He showed his bosses this was meant for him, was offered another job, and turned it down. He finally realized teaching was meant for him. He wanted to show students how to overcome brick walls that stand in their way. He did just this with his college students.

Dr. Pausch used another great method in his classroom, which was using technology. He did not like teaching from books. He wanted his students to teach themselves, and to learn from themselves. His students taught themselves a lot with technology. His students made virtual worlds on their own. They presented their work and did very well with this. They worked in groups, and all worked together. Group work is another method Dr. Pausch used. His students were assigned projects with their group, and they completed them and presented them, then moved on to the next assignment together. Technology and group work are great together.

The methods that Dr. Pausch used in his classroom will for sure be used in my classroom. My students will be assigned technological assignments, and will also have to work in groups to complete some of them. Achieving your childhood dreams is important also. I hope I can help my students in any way possible to achieve their dreams. For the most part, they will have to accomplish this on their own. Another thing I will help my students with is knocking down those brick walls that get in their way. I will teach my students that they have to prove how much they want something to achieve it. I can not wait to start helping my students!

2 comments:

  1. Very well written! I loved his many methods also.

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  2. "The methods that Dr. Pausch used in his classroom will for sure be used in my classroom." Great!

    I am glad you found the video useful. It is a powerful statement.


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