Randy Pausch gave a lecture a few years ago before he died of cancer. You many be familiar with the book he wrote entitled, The Last Lecture. What I noticed at the time was not what I expected after listening to his words of wisdom. What I noticed was a statement he made about how he structured assignments in his classroom. Every assignment he gave to his students at Carnegie revolved around working in small groups and on group projects. Every one. I thought; how odd. I was reminded of this while I was sitting with a group of friends last night over dinner. The rationale behind Randy's method was to learn how to work with other people...especially those who are different from you. The January-term study abroad concept is a good social experiment. Take a diverse group of college students who barely know each other and place them in a foreign country where they have to work together to get around. Kind of sounds like The Amazing Race! Today will mark one week in Athens, Greece and this group of indviduals is continuing to bond and develop trust with one another. Through our adventures in navigating through Athens we have forged relationships with people we might never have if it were not for this trip. We are forced to work together and as a result, we are sharing our struggles and depending on each other to pull through. That's teamwork, folks. Randy got it right when he said there are lessons to be learned from working in groups. Our environment seems to be ideal for this. There are plenty of problems and conflict around us for group stimulation. And when the day is done, we can sit down over a lovely dinner and laugh about how silly we are to think that we would not make it through...together. This is reward enough.
The Social Experiment
Randy Pausch gave a lecture a few years ago before he died of cancer. You many be familiar with the book he wrote entitled, The Last Lecture. What I noticed at the time was not what I expected after listening to his words of wisdom. What I noticed was a statement he made about how he structured assignments in his classroom. Every assignment he gave to his students at Carnegie revolved around working in small groups and on group projects. Every one. I thought; how odd. I was reminded of this while I was sitting with a group of friends last night over dinner. The rationale behind Randy's method was to learn how to work with other people...especially those who are different from you. The January-term study abroad concept is a good social experiment. Take a diverse group of college students who barely know each other and place them in a foreign country where they have to work together to get around. Kind of sounds like The Amazing Race! Today will mark one week in Athens, Greece and this group of indviduals is continuing to bond and develop trust with one another. Through our adventures in navigating through Athens we have forged relationships with people we might never have if it were not for this trip. We are forced to work together and as a result, we are sharing our struggles and depending on each other to pull through. That's teamwork, folks. Randy got it right when he said there are lessons to be learned from working in groups. Our environment seems to be ideal for this. There are plenty of problems and conflict around us for group stimulation. And when the day is done, we can sit down over a lovely dinner and laugh about how silly we are to think that we would not make it through...together. This is reward enough.
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