Blog Post # 7

What Can We Learn About Teaching and Learning From Randy Pausch?



Randy Pausch is a professor, husband and father, his “Last Lecture” will be seen by educators around the world. Mr. Pausch contributed an inspiring lecture cementing his life story and accomplishments in history. What a beautiful talk but more aptly named as a gift for all of us to share in. The story about his journey in education is one any and every teacher can strive for, and hope said teacher can make an impact on the world as he did. The man achieved all of his childhood dreams and even facilitated the attainment of childhood dreams of those around him. Mr. Pausch proves, through his course at Carnegie Mellon University, using digital Project Based Learning can produce amazing results that surpass an educators greatest expectations for the desired learning outcome. His course was one that was offered to graduate students and revolutionized the way computer science was taught. Learning is fun and there is a line of people waiting for an opportunity to witness the projects being produced by these young creative individuals.







This concept could easily be applied to any grade, given our new technology. The teacher must be willing to give up a little control, allowing the children creative control, and the administrators must be onboard in order to give the teacher the freedom to explore such projects. According to Mr. Pausch, every two weeks there is evidence for the effectiveness of the role each group member played and a system for grading their work. Mr. Pausch states,

“That’s hard feedback to ignore,” causing the educator to give the best gift they can give; getting somebody to become self reflective.”

When you are aware of mistakes you are making, a person who is willing can make the necessary changes or improvements to ensure a better quality product or outcome. This teacher believed in this way of learning and worked hard to produce amazing results. He believed in his students, in a way not unlike the way his mentors believed in him. The head of his university, President Cohon, reminds him “Tell them about having FUN” and sometimes the students will not even realize they are learning because the fun masks the real objective. Mr. Pausch states: Decide if you are a Tigger or an Eeyore. Are you going to take a positive outlook and make things fun or are you going to be negative and focus on what can and will go wrong. What a very moving message this dying man leaves as the final piece of his legacy. A teacher can and should hope to leave an imprint on the world as substantial as Mr. Pausch has in his lifetime.