Blog Assignment #8

What can we learn about teaching from Randy Pausch?

Let me begin by saying how fascinating this man was; his lecture was funny, informative, inspirational and enthusiastic.  Randy Pausch was a professor at Carnegie Mellon University. More than that he has a story that will continue to be an inspiration to people everywhere for many years to come. Randy Pausch gave his final lecture on September 18, 2007.  During this lecture he reveals to the audience that he has been diagnosed with ten tumors and that he only has a short time left here on Earth. This lecture teaches us lessons on how we can become good teachers and learners, but most importantly how we can live life to the fullest.

Randy Pausch gives us a snapshot look into his life where he expresses his childhood dreams and his vision to enable the dreams of others. Something he taught me personally in the lecture was how to come across as a good teacher by connecting with the audience or students and giving every person a real life connection to what is being spoken about. Mr. Pausch makes us laugh and he uses technology in a fun and interesting way.

Some things he teaches us is to:

Never lose sight of our dreams

Have something to bring to the table

Understand the fundamentals

Be enthusiastic

Have valuable information

Use indirect learning through sportsmanship or teamwork

Lead people

Make an impression

Show the facts

Be inspiring

 
Randy Pausch had a dream to be an imagineer and he demonstrated his inventiveness at Disney Studios and at the university, where he achieved most of his dreams and he performed them exceptionally well.  His enthusiasm about learning and teaching inspires us to be and do more in our own lives. Mr. Pausch continuously reminds us that we will encounter brick walls in our endeavors. These brick walls are there for a reason, he believes that reason is to cause us to work hard and prove how badly we want our dreams to become reality. Other helpful teaching and learning techniques we can learn from Mr. Pausch comes from his advice on becoming an enabler of childhood dreams.

We can do this by:

Setting the bar high to help students achieve success

Helping students make others happy

Give children a sense of excitement

Bond with others

Pioneer

Have fun

Collaborate

Give credit where credit is due

We can also learn, and help our students learn, by doing projects and focusing on the quality and success of others. As teachers we should always take the time to reflect. In all we do, we learn lessons from the ones we love and all those others around us. These people help us enhance our teaching by inspiring us and giving us advice. As teachers we should be good at promoting education. We should also be open to learn from our students. We should respect our students. Mr. Pausch also provides us with a few extra tips to excel in teaching, but to sum them up we basically need to be genuine by doing the right things, cherishing feedback, showing gratitude, working hard, value the importance of people and always understand that we can make our dreams come true through hard work and dedication.

Check out his amazing and inspiring lecture below:
Randy Pausch's Last Lecture