Blog Post #7

Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams

I just finished watching the above lecture by Randy Pausch. He was a tenured professor at Carnegie Mellon. He was an excellent example of a lifelong learner. At the beginning of his lecture, I was surprised to hear him say he had terminal cancer. I was surprised to hear this because his demeanor was so warm, friendly and lighthearted. He was not full of doom and gloom. Instead, he went out of his way to make jokes and really give the audience a sincere, heartfelt lecture. In the beginning, we were told the lecture was intended to give the audience tips on how to achieve our own childhood dreams. In the end, we were told we were "Head Faked"; the lecture was actually for his children.

A "Head Fake" was one of Pausch's favorite teaching methods. He described it as teaching indirectly. An individual signs up to learn one thing, and in the end learns something else totally different. He gave the example of football. Initially, parents sign their children up to play football. However, most parents do not want their children to be football players. They really want their children to learn sportsmanship, teamwork and perseverance.

As I mentioned earlier, Pausch was a professor at Carnegie Mellon. During his lecture he spoke about the different methods he would use to teach in his technology classroom. His classroom was actually quite unique for several reasons. First of all, it started out as an experiment. He would only instruct fifty students per semester. They would then team up in groups to work on and complete a project every two weeks. The class had no hard and fast rules except two, and they were only in regard to what the content of the projects could not be about.

Not knowing what to expect from his first student's projects, in his first experimental class, the students blew him away. After this, he was hesitant to set a bar of what excellence was in his classroom or what was expected. He did not want the students to become less motivated. It worked. The freedom of the classroom and the unlimited creativity made the class become the most popular on the entire campus. The students would exhibit their work to standing room only crowds in a huge venue.

Another element of his teaching that I especially commended, was his approach to group learning. He understood the importance of working well with your peers in these groups. I think he was actually setting them up for something bigger, another Pausch "Head Fake" if you will. Pausch would give a survey to each student. The survey asked them to rate their peers based on their ability to get along well with others in their group. He would then accumulate the answers in the form of a bar graph. The students would see how they measured up. The smart ones would then adjust their behavior accordingly.

Pausch was teaching his students the invaluable lesson. I am also interested in teaching students social skills that they will use throughout their life in my future classroom. I believe the adults who get the promotions and raises are not always the brightest, but the ones who have the best social skill set.