Achieving Your Childhood Dreams by Randy Pausch
It was hard to differentiate the teaching methods for me because I was too busy listening to his story and sifting through all the people he had to thank. It is so sad that he died. I feel for his wife and children. It's hard to think that this was his last big speech before he left this world. I guess it was appropriate because he was trying to give advice.
The four techniques for teaching that I found were hands-on learning, head fakes, making learning fun, and...
He believed in hands on learning. He used this a lot in his classes. He began a class at his university that had the students creating virtual worlds. He actually turned it into a masters program where students complete project after project in order to earn their masters.
He believed in tricking students into learning by telling them they're learning something else. He calls it "head fakes." He would have the students start a project and tell them the goal was to teach one thing (like the Alice project) and they would end up gleaning something unexpected from the project (like learning how to use Javascript).
Making learning fun. He says that this is the most important thing and that this is what he really wants us to take away form his lecture on teaching. I agree with him. I think that making learning fun is really important. Part of the reason that I want to be a teacher is that I had so many teachers that made learning fun and I wanted others to experience that.
Comments4Kids Week 8
This week I had Michala. Her post was about slavery. I think she touched on empathy with the slaves. It was a very good post. =)
http://mrsshetler.edublogs.org/2009/10/27/i-feel-like-a-slave/comment-page-1/#comment-197
It is sad that Randy died. However, I liked his video on the last lecture. I liked that he talked about childhood dreams and how to lead your life to achieve them. He was a really cool guy. "Make Learning Fun". I have had some teachers that made learning fun, but not all of them. I promised to do my best to make English fun to students. Great Blog!!
ReplyDeleteI agree it really is sad that he passed away. Not only did he do his best to make learning fun but he also looked at the bright side of everything. No matter how bad things got for him, he kept pushing through. Although he was faced with only 6 months to live he lived it to to the fullest.
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