Thursday, October 9, 2014

Blog Post #8: "What Can We Learn About Teaching and Learning From Randy Pausch?"

"What Can We Learn About Teaching and Learning From Randy Pausch?"
By: Noah Armstrong 

Randy Pausch
Source:http://www.cmu.edu/randyslecture/

     First of all let me start with how inspiring this man is. Anyone who can stand up in front of a group of people with that much confidence and energy when he has only months to live has my undivided attention. As far as what we can learn about teaching and learning from him it is hard to know where to start. Firstly teaching, I found his example of asking to take his sabbatical to Disney amazing in showing the importance of good communication. Two people can say the same thing and it can be perceived in completely different ways. This is critical to keep in mind when talking to students. They already feel intimidated by you to begin with. Why speak in a way that makes them even more intimidated and afraid when you can calmly figure out a solution. Secondly learning, Mr. Pausch's story of his old football coach riding him at practice is not only completely relate-able to me but also a good thing to remember when dealing with stress in the classroom as a student. If a teacher rides you to fix your mistakes or not make them the next time it is because they know you can do it not because they don't like you. On the other hand if they just let you keep on making mistakes they have given up on you and will ignore you.

2 comments:

  1. Noah,
    I really like your second sentence, it stood out to me! I agree with you that Randy's confidence was very encouraging! I think your ideas on teaching and learning are something we can all relate too. Communication is key, like you said. Also, I understand what you're saying about the teacher/coach pushing their students to be better and achieve more! Next time, you may want to re-read over your post to catch the little comma errors. Other that that, good job on your post and I enjoyed reading it!

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  2. Be sure to include your url in an actual link. This helps the reader in that they can just click and be at the exact website you are talking about. Also, do not forget about the alt/title modifiers!

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