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Discover how incorporating humor into the classroom can increase student engagement, motivation, and attention span. Learn the do's and don'ts of using humor as a teaching tool.
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Knock knock… • Who’s there?
Here is a story. It all fits on two slides so you can relax. • I used to teach teachers. I often asked my students to create and enact lesson plans. I encouraged them to have fun with the assignments. • I had students in costumes and playing games. One gentleman moved us around the room while his classmates and I were treated as game pieces on the giant chess board he created. • This went over pretty well…most of the time. • There were always skeptics. In fact, one person stuck out in my mind. He asked, “I am confused. Do you want us to educate them or entertain them?”
The answer was and still is… • Both. • Of course it is the instructor’s job to educate. We have learning outcomes and we must meet those outcomes. • That is no joke. We all know this. We can all agree this is priority number one. We all must reach our leaning outcomes. • However, how we reach those outcomes is something else entirely.
Why use jokes? This isn’t a comedy club. Right. I get that. Not everyone is funny and not everyone wants to do this. I am not suggesting that anyone must use humor. However, this topic has been researched for over 50 years (Stoll, 2016) and the findings are no laughing matter (see what I did there? Puns are not always everyone’s favorite. There were a lot of groans out there; of that I am sure). In 2010, researchers discovered that: When college students are asked to identify what makes a good instructor, among the first characteristics noted is a sense of humor. Students often remember their favorite instructors as being those who created a fun environment and made them laugh. (as cited in Stoll, 2016)
Use the Goldilocks principle (which is a term I just made up, but is based on research). • When humor is used regularly but sparingly, students pay attention to all of the material as they are constantly engaged. • If the whole class is a series of jokes, that becomes the point of the class and it can be a distraction. • If the teacher hardly ever makes a joke and then tries to do it once or twice a semester, it distracts the students and they are likely to forget everything.
Goldilocks continued… • Make sure the amount of humor is just right. (See, Goldilocks…get it? Sheesh, tough crowd). • The research from the previous slide(Stoll, 2016) proves that if done in just the right amount, humor can and will increase attention span. • This increased attention span leads to more successful students who in turn are more motivated to come back to and participate in classes. • We have all had classes where we feel like we are talking to ourselves or we look at the user activity and see that no one is finishing any videos or even clicking links. • While humor is not the only factor in motivation and attention span, it does increase both and that can only be considered positive.
Do… • Researchers (as cited in Stoll, 2016) surveyed college students and assembled a list of appropriate uses of humor in the classroom. These include: • Content-related humor – These include jokes that pertain to the content: humorous video clips, cartoons or stories that repeat or engage the content in a way that encourages the student to think about the content in new ways. Humor used in this manner has been shown to increase recognition of the concepts during testing. Teacher performances, role playing and even gentle teasing can all fall into this category. • Unrelated humor – although not as powerful as humor directly related to the content, humor that is not related can also be used. Jokes, stories, teacher performances, all fall into this category as well, the subject matter is merely not related to the content of the class. This study listed cynical humor as appropriate in this category. Lei, Cohen & Russler (2010), more recently, also showed that students thought that sarcastic humor was appropriate in the classroom.
Do…Continuned • Self-disparaging humor – this is where the instructor creates humor at his or her own expense. If the instructor makes fun of mistakes made in class, or makes fun of personal characteristics, these can be appropriate, if done with some sensitivity. • Unintentional or unplanned humor is the last category, when things happen during class and, instead of having a negative effect, the instructor can make light of the situation and turn it to humorous advantage.
Do not…(there is no try) • Humor can distract as powerfully as it raises student’s attention span. There are several categories of inappropriate humor. Researchers (as cited in Stoll, 2016) list these types of humor to avoid in your classroom. • Offensive humor – this is humor that talks about parts of human behavior best left out of the classroom. Common examples include humor about sex, violence, drugs, alcohol, abuse, bullying and politics. • Disparaging Humor, students – humor that made fun of specific students in the class, groups of students with common characteristics or all students were very distracting to the students. Any positive student-teacher rapport built up in a class quickly evaporated when this type of humor was used.
Do not…Continued • Disparaging Humor, Self - Self-disparaging humor, while listed in the appropriate category can be inappropriate if it belittles the instructor too much and is used often. If an instructor does nothing but attempt humor by calling into question his or her abilities or choices, soon the students will begin to also question those ideas and the instructor’s credibility will erode. • Sarcasm – Sarcastic wit aims to put something or someone in a poor light. While this type of humor can quickly become inappropriate, it is so prevalent in today’s student culture that it is seen as acceptable by many students today. Because of its prevalence, many instructors start with this type of humor, but it is very easy to use too much, or belittle in the wrong fashion, quickly hurting the class environment.
What I do • I am not saying I am the expert here, but I find that being funny helps. I am not a stand up comic, but I do try to break the ice and set the tone. I have no problem being funny and cracking jokes and maintaining my credibility. • I like to use pictures of myself as jokes as you saw in the first slide. Here are a few more pictures I use.
Resources • Honestly, the number of sources you can use are limitless. Clearly, it depends on the course you teach. • Brian Regan is a clean comic. He has some amazing jokes about almost everything. I use his clip “one thing lead to another” to introduce cause and effect. • Brian Regan • I use this clip from Lilo and Stitch to explain rhetorical questions. • The best jokes are the one’s you make yourself, but if you think you are not funny look around. The internet is a big place.
References Stoll, P. (2016) E-Learning practice: Adding Humor to your Online Class. University of Arizona. Retrieved from http://arizona.openrepository.com/arizona/handle/10150/609850
