Blog Post #7

"We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand." Randy Pausch  

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture : Achieving Your Childhood Dream

Randy Pausch is so inspirational and I learn so much about life and teaching from his video. I am really thankful and appreciative that I got the chance to watch this video. He inspired me to work hard to achieve all of my dreams.

In the video, the one thing that stuck out the most to me was when Randy was talking about brick walls. As educators, we are going to face hardship and problems, but we have to learn from them and keep enabling our students to achieve their dreams. You may be wondering how we enable our students to achieve their dreams. We do this by teaching them to the best of our abilities and never giving up on them. Just as teachers will run into “brick walls”, so will our students. Just as Randy said, we have to let them know that brick walls are there to separate the ones who want to achieve their dreams and the ones who really don’t want to achieve their dreams. When our students come across those brick walls, we have to be there to help them get through it.

I can assume that Randy is an advocator for project base learning. He explains how he had students do five projects over a semester. He also mentions that he switch their group every two weeks, which I think is awesome because he gives them the opportunity to develop different skills by working with different people. He also mentions that his students are having fun while learning something hard. As educators, I think that it is extremely important for us to create fun ways for our student to learn the “hard stuff”. If we can take the focus away from the material being hard and make it fun, students will be eager to learn. When can create projects for our students to complete, we might think our expectations are too high, but Randy suggested that we do not set a bar on our students. Let them show us what they are able to accomplish. Setting the bar on our students may limit them and do them more harm than good. They may even teach us something new and as educators we are lifelong learners. Randy talked a little about disappointment, and we know that our students sometimes will disappoint us. When student disappoint us by not doing their work or trying their best; don’t give up on them. Push them harder and let them know you care. Also as educators, we are going to get disappointed when a project or lesson do not work out, or when someone criticizes us. Take that experience and learn from your mistakes. As Randy stated, experience is what you get when you did not get what you wanted

What can we learn from Randy Pausch about learning?

We can learn from Randy that it is okay to take risk with learning. As an educator, let your students take risk with learning. Allow learning to be fun. Design a project for them and let them show you their abilities. Do not set a bar on learning. When something is hard, do not give up, just work harder. He also taught us to learn from others and take their feedback to help you improve. Remember, all feedback is not bad feedback. He also taught us to learn to work with others and learn from them and with them. In the video, Randy explains in every achievement or disappoint that he came across, he learn something. I think it is safe to say that one of the main points that Randy made is to be a lifelong learner.