Randy Pausch tells you that during his video he will discuss: his childhood dreams, enabling the dreams of others, and lessons learned. He begins by talking about his childhood dreams: be in zero gravity, play in the NFL, author an article in the World Book encyclopedia, be Captain Kirk, win stuffed animals, and be a Disney Imagineer. He achieved all of these dreams except for playing in the NFL. However, he uses the quote, "experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted." to describe how he feels about not achieving it. Although he did not play in the NFL, he discusses the football coach he had and talks about the critics that we encounter in our life. His coach was a critic to his football. We, as educators, are critics to our students. I think it is important to point out to our students, at an early age, that we are not there to tell them they aren't doing well to be mean/hurtful but because we care and we want them to be successful. Pausch says that critics are simply people that are trying to help us because they care about us and love us; when people stop criticizing you when you are doing something wrong, they have given up on you.
Pausch points out that no matter what we try to achieve in life, we will most likely run into "brick walls" here and there. He says brick walls are there simply to prove to us how much we want something and to stop those who do not want things bad enough. This is very accurate. Throughout my life, I have hit quite a few "brick walls." It is important, though, that we teach our students to not give up until you reach the other side.
Randy Pausch proceeds to tell us how he created a class called Building Virtual Worlds. In this class, there were 50 students chosen at random to work in groups for two weeks. Every two weeks the assigned group and assignment were changed. This forced students to work together as a team, multiple times, with different people. In doing this, you learn people skills. You learn how to interact and work with other people. They also learned how well other people were able to work with them by putting data into bar graphs. Seeing where you need to make improvements to yourself can help you be a better teammate and a better (future) teacher. This will not only benefit the students in the classroom but in life as well. He makes a very true statement when he says "The best gift an educator can give is to teach someone to be self-reflective."
He also talks about the use of technology to involve a large group of people at one time. Using interactive learning can really keep the attention in a classroom. If you give all of your students something to do to interact in the learning process, they are more likely to walk away remembering more than they would have if they had watched the instructor lecture while flashing a power point slide show. Allowing students to have fun while they learn something that would, otherwise, be boring is truly great.
Towards the end of his lecture, he talks about the role of parents and mentors. I can honestly say, I do not know if I would be as passionate about my education if it were not for my mother. My mother has played a huge role in my life and has always encouraged me to do my best and achieve what I know I am capable of and even more. As for my mentors, I would say that I have had two teachers who have played a very big role in my wanting to become, not just a teacher, but a life changing teacher. I had a teacher in elementary school who started my love for education. She made learning fun and she loved coming to work everyday and working with her students. The second, would be my English teacher from my junior year of high school. Not only was she an amazing person who was there for her students unconditionally, she made learning enjoyable. I only hope that I can have as big of an impact on my students lives as they have had on mine.
I only have one more thing to touch on. Randy Pausch had 10 cancerous tumors on his liver but he did not let it stop him. We can all learn from this; every single person can learn from his attitude. He is dying and he knows it and yet he is so content with where he is. We can go through life and let one small thing put us in a horrible mood. From now on, we should think about Randy Pausch when we are feeling a little more like Eeyore than Tigger.
Hey Kelsey, I see you really learned a lot from Randy Pausch's last lecture also. I also really liked what Randy had to say about the "brick walls" in life. Many people come to these "brick walls" and think that they cannot overcome them. I am here to say that you can overcome almost any brick wall, if you really want something badly enough. You should not let things get in the way of achieving your dreams!
ReplyDeleteI also see that you thought that the class, Building Virtual Worlds, was a great way to teach students how to work together and learn great communication skills. I could not agree more! This type of teaching totally takes students out of their comfort zones and forces them to interact with all sorts of people. This skill will be invaluable in their future lives, no matter what career they chose. I really enjoyed reading your blog about Randy Pausch's last lecture, and seeing what you had to say and how it related to what I felt. Good luck in the rest of EDM310, you seem to be doing a great job so far!