The Last Lecture of Randy Pausch

In Randy Pausch's "Last Lecture," he brings up many teaching methods that can be useful to everyone, especially those going into education. These methods were produced during Randy Pausch's work with his students at Carnegie Mellon University and other teaching positions.

One teaching method that Randy Pausch stressed was not setting bars. He refers to his Virtual Reality course he developed. He never set a standard for his students, but instead gave his students the freedom to explore and develop their ideas. Pausch was then pleasantly surprised at how his students exceeded his expectations. This shows that by encouraging students and truly making "the sky the limit," students will exceed any level of success an educator can set.

Another teaching method used by Pausch was group work. And entire graduate course Pausch co-directed consisted only of group projects. The members of the groups changed every two weeks along with the project. This allowed the students to interact with each other and learn to work civilly with people they may not know well. Pausch also mentioned the "head fake". This is when a student is able to learn a hard skill while having fun. By making the assignment entertaining, the student is able to better relate to the subject matter and begins to master the subject unknowingly. This is an extremely important teaching technique because it prevents the opportunity for a student to say that they "can't do" a certain task or think that a learning objective is "too hard."

The final teaching method Randy Pausch stressed was to have fun. If a teacher is not enjoying what he/she is doing, it is impossible for a student to hold any enthusiasm about their education. It is the responsibility of the teacher to make learning entertaining, even when the subject matter is difficult and not easy to master. If a teacher conveys a positive attitude, the same can be expected of the class.