Blog Post #8

I watched Randy Pausch's Last Lecture and I must say it was an astounding lecture. It was a very inspiring video with some great messages. I loved that Randy Pausch was very enthusiastic and passionate about what he was saying. One of the first things he mentioned was to not take pity on him because of his illness, Randy was diagnosed with a terminal illness and had only a few months to live, hence the last lecture. Most of the video is about Randy speaking about his life as a college professor. He taught at Carnegie Mellon and the class he enjoyed talking about was his class that was based on virtual reality. His class was pretty much I've grown to learn about in my EDM 310 class, Project Based Learning. He divided his students into groups and instructed them to create a virtual game every few weeks for the semester. Of course, this class being PBL, there were no specific directions ore guidelines given. Students could create whatever they chose. After seeing the projects the students created, Randy talked about how surprised he was to see how creative his students were that he got to a point where he didn't know what to tell them to do next. So what did he do? He told the students their projects were good, but that they could do better. Hearing that is important to me as a future teacher because I know to always motivate and push my students further then they believe they can go.
So what did I learn from Randy? I learned that there will be times when you may hit a brick wall, but NEVER give up. As a future teacher, I know there will be obstacles I will encounter, but I know I must find a way to overcome those obstacles. I must be prepared to take on any challenge. Listening to Randy speak and knowing at that time he only had a few more months to live, but gave this astounding lecture showed me his passion and dedication as an educator. I believe passion is key for anyone's love of craft. This video was one of those things that I know will stick with me for many years, and something I know I will constantly be viewing as a teacher.