Blog Post # 6 - What Can We Learn About Teaching and Learning From Randy Pausch?

After watching Randy Pausch's Last Lecture, I was inspired by the teaching methods he used and his evident love for teaching. In his lecture he spoke about how he used project based learning in his classes and how to have fun while learning something hard.

Randy Pausch's classes on building virtual worlds are a prime example on project based learning. He began the semester by dividing the class into groups of five and giving them two weeks to complete the first of five projects for the semester. Two weeks later when the students presented their projects, he was blown away by their work. He didn't know what he was going to do in the next four projects because they had done so well in the first. This teaches me that as a teacher I can't put a bar of expectations on students. I have to keep pushing them to go as far as they can. Randy also taught that students need an audience. He found that on presentation day, he would have extra students and even parents in the class. His students were excited about their projects and wanted to share them with their family and friends. This shows me that when there is an audience, students work harder, have pride in their work, and are excited about sharing what they created with others. Randy also believed that as teachers we need to make our students become self-reflective. For each of the five projects, he divided the students into new groups, so for each project a student would work with a group of students that they had not worked with before. At the end of each project, he would have the students evaluate their group members so at the end of the semester each student would have 20 evaluations on their self. I think working with new people for each project is great preparation for group work in real life. Also, the evaluations allow the students to become self-reflective so that they will know the areas that they need to work on.

From his experience with project based learning, Randy Pausch knew what project based learning was all about. He said, "Most of what we learn, we learn indirectly." The students in his classes were learning how to build virtual worlds, but most importantly learning how to work with others. He also taught that the best way to teach someone something is to have them think they are learning something else, and he called it a "head fake". This reminds me of this EDM class. Dr. Strange is having us learn about technology in the classroom by using technology. I'm learning about teaching in this course, but more than that I am learning how to use technology by creating and maintaining a blog, by using Twitter for my PLN, and by working with others by collaborating on Google Docs.

This lecture taught me about teaching but most importantly it inspired me. One of the quotes that Randy Pausch kept reminding the audience was that "brick walls are there to show us how badly we want something." This inspired me that there will be brick walls in teaching but I must be creative and innovative so that I may reach every student. I must pass this on to my students as well, so that they know you must work hard to achieve your goals.