Blog Post #8

Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture

Wow, what an incredibly powerful video. Mr. Pausch gave an excellent lecture that perfectly sums up the basis of being an educator. Through the video he shows that he was able to achieve many of his childhood goals, one way or another, and how he was made a better person because of them.

Mr. Pausch uses this lecture to give an outline of how a person can not only better themselves, but also others around them. This is also very applicable to educators because making their students better people should be their primary goal. Through the use of his "head-fakes", he helped develop a new method of education. It is not about focusing on the material itself, but instead on the method in which it is learned. This idea was implemented in his Computer Science programs and showed great success. Through a series of project based learning principles, he created an environment for each student that was fun and academically rewarding. He stated that this method made hard subjects fun.

Learning is also a topic that Mr. Pausch covers in his lecture. He uses his own shortcomings and successes to show how he has learned over time. Self-reflection is a way in which the way we should all learn. Feedback from either your peers or teachers is a way in which you can gauge your own educational development.  By listening to this feedback, you can see how others perceive you.

I also really enjoyed this quote: “The brick walls are there for a reason. They are not there to set us back; they are there to let us show how badly we want something.”