Blog Post #8

Randy Pausch Last Lecture:Achieving Your Childhood Dreams

In the first few minutes of the video, after he explains his terminal illness, he told a story about his old football coach. One of his coaches stated,” When you’re screwing up and nobody’s saying anything to you anymore, that means they’ve given up.” That taught me an important lesson about teaching; I cannot be scared to point out mistakes to my students. Throughout the video he gives us a list of his childhood dreams. He stated that “brick walls are there to show how bad we want something”. I think this was important because in learning and teaching we are going to face brick walls, but we will have to remember never to give up. Randy gave an example of his class. He paired the students in groups and gave them a project to work on for two weeks. The students completed the project and Randy was overwhelmed by the work that they had done .Telling these students that they could do better motivated them and they were able to create better work. That was such a powerful lesson for me about teaching. It is important to push students beyond expectations because once you allow them to settle they are not using their full potential. Randy said that the best way to teach students is by making them think they are learning something else. He does this by making projects entertaining for students, but using the software so the students are actually being taught new technology. To be a great teacher and learner you have to show dedication, cherish feedback, show gratitude, don’t complain, be good at something, find the best in everybody and be prepared.