Basic Teaching Skills for Career Education Instructors

1. Basic Teaching Skills for Career Education Instructors Chapter 17 Learning Is a Laughing Matter

2. Critical Concept • It has been long understood that when students are laughing and having fun, they are learning even more.

3. Desired Performance Goals • List the best conditions for learning. • Define learning and laughter. • Explain the theories of what makes us laugh. • List the mental-, physical-, and work-related benefits of laughter. • Explain the 4 stages of humor competence. • Identify strategies for improving creativity. • List ways to integrate humor in the workplace and classroom.

4. The Master Educator • Facilitates internal jogging to stimulate beneficial brain neurotransmitters. • Teaches learners to fake laughter that ultimately results in genuine laughter. • Uses laughter to engage both sides of the brain for more comprehensive learning.

5. Interesting Facts About Laughter • It produces endorphins. • People who laugh are liked more. • Teachers who use humor are liked more. • Self-deprecation is safe humor. • Humor facilitates more risks. • Fake smiles differ from sincere smiles. (continues)

6. Interesting Facts About Laughter • Rituals provide security. • Emotional cues result from educator’s mood.

7. Humor Assists Teachers • Helps reveal a secure attitude. • Gains and holds learner attention. • Increases retention of information by learners.

8. Learning and Laughter Defined • Learning: To acquire knowledge, understanding, skills, or behavioral tendency by study, instruction, or experience. • Laughter: The sound of laughing; the cause of merriment. Laughter is the psychological response to humor.

9. Two Parts of Laughter • One part: Gestures • Another part: Sounds • 15 facial muscles contract during laughter • Gelotology: Formal name for the physiological study of humor

10. Purpose of Laughter • To make and strengthen human connections and relationships • Laughter Theories • Incongruity theory • Superiority theory • Relief theory • Spontaneity theory

11. Mental Health Benefits of Laughter • Less stress (continues)

12. Mental Health Benefits of Laughter • Reduced anger and anxiety • Increased joy and aliveness • More positive and optimistic mood • Greater sense of control • Emotional release

13. Work-Related Benefits of Laughter • Improved team-building and communication • Better conflict management • Greater morale and job satisfaction • Enhanced creativity and problem solving • Resilience • Managed stress and productivity

14. Physical Health Benefits of Laughter • Strengthened immune system • Improved physical health • Reduced stress hormones • Increased weight loss

15. Stress Defined as a physical, chemical, or emotional factor that causes bodily or mental tension and may be a factor in the cause of disease.

16. Four Stages of Humor Competence • Unconscious incompetence • Conscious incompetence • Conscious competence • Unconscious competence

17. Laughter Enhances Creativity • What is an idea? • Inspiring an idea • Self-esteem is key. • Lives are altered by attitudes. • Positive self-talk

18. Origins of Imagination • Everyone is born with an imagination. If you don’t believe that, give a 4-year-old a stick and watch what happens.

19. Stimulation of Imagination • Do different things; vary your routine. • Work on observation skills; notice details.

20. What If? • Ask and do: develop a passion for knowledge. • Switch gears: when experiencing blocks in the creative process, switch gears and keep up the momentum. • Take action: strive to avoid making excuses as to why something cannot be accomplished.

21. Humor in the Workplace • Keep goofy toys at desk. • Use funny visualizations. • Laugh 5 minutes on way to work. • Wear temporary, funny tattoos. • Conduct daily huddle for laughing. • Communicate with cartoons. • Wear funny hats for different moods.

22. Humor in the Classroom • Build a “mirth-aid kit”. • Create a Joy Jar or Silly Sack. • Create an Inspirational Insights Bag. • Incorporate humorous video clips. (continues)

23. Humor in the Classroom • Wear a goofy hat to present. (continues)

24. Humor in the Classroom • Count daily laughter events. • List positive things and share. • Give projects funny names. • Wear humorous T-shirt under lab jacket. • Use games. • Create prize categories and prizes. • Offer assignment options. (continues)

25. Humor in the Classroom • Write silly songs about serious subjects. • Encourage silliness in students. • Buy laughing CD or laughing toys. • Have students crate fun ways to learn. • Wear purple, fluorescent eyelashes. • Schedule hilarity breaks.

26. Wrapping It Up • Laughter is a form of internal jogging. • Laughter is good for our health. • Children laugh 400 times per day. • Adults only laugh 15 times per day. • We can fake a laugh and it becomes real. • Humor may not add years to your life, but it will definitely add life to your years!

27. In Retrospect • List the best conditions for learning. • Define learning, laughter, and laugh. • Explain the theories of what makes us laugh. (continues)

28. In Retrospect • List the mental benefits of laughter. • List the work-related benefits of laughter. (continues)

29. In Retrospect • List the physical benefits of laughter. • Explain the four stages of humor competence. • Identify strategies for combining ideas and letting creative juices flow. (continues)

30. In Retrospect • List ways to integrate humor into the workplace and classroom.

31. Congratulations! You have completed seventeen units of study toward completion of your instructor training program.