On week 2 discussion board I mentioned that humor, along with other strategies, is a strategy I use to actively engage students. Based on my experience, the humor strategy emotionally involves all my students because laughther is a form of positive emotion. Although an excerpt, I was thrilled to read the journal entry An Explanation of the Relationship between Instructor Humor and Student Learning: Instructional Humor Processing Theory. The entry discusses that instructors who use appropriate humor result in increased student learning.
This is a valuable source because it gives educators an innovative way to support student learning. This source is also useful because it talks about specific types of humor to use in the classroom. Being a popular and funny teacher does not automatically result to positive student learning. The article states that in order for the humor to make a positive impact, it must be related to instructional content.
I feel “An Explanation of the Relationship between Instructor Humor and Student Learning: Instructional Humor Processing Theory" is very important theory. Even though I could not find the particular article from the Walden Uni. library I searched for the said theory in the web. it actually attracted me because I handle teaching English as a second language classes (teaching students secondary school and teacher trainees) I feel not only instructors on online courses but also teachers in face to face classes should incorporate humor into the lessons because it can enhance learners ability to grasp what is taught in a stress free environment. In the following link there are many insightful ideas http://radicalpedagogy.icaap.org/content/issue8_2/shatz.html
ReplyDelete“Of the personal dimensions of teaching, humor is the most human of them all. Teachers who value humor, who not only tolerate laughter and fun in their classrooms, but even invite them in and encourage them to stay, are perceived by students as being more interesting and relevant than those who appear grim and humorless (Kottler & Zehm, 2000: 16).
There are many advantages of humor mentioned
1. Award-winning educators encourage the use of humor to create an inviting classroom environment (e.g., Buskist, 2002; Roth, 1997)
2. students believe that classroom humor relieves stress, improves attention, and enhances learning (Gorham & Christophel, 1990; Wanzer & Frymier, 1999; White, 2001)
There is no doubt that humor makes Learning Teaching process easy, the question comes how to apply it to virtual class rooms where instruction is given online .However, James (2004) states that “Because humor is one of the major traits of the best, most effective teachers, it is a characteristic.
Further it explains that “educational purpose of the humor” should be used as a device to teach and to increase interest, to enhance the rapport between teacher & students and educators should measure the effectiveness of humor by how it promotes learning because pedagogical humor is not meant make the target audience laugh. In a virtual classroom, humor nonverbal cues are impossible to use therefore instructors must consider many things such as caste creed & race before adding the humor to the online course. Some may treat humor as an insult due to above mentioned reasons.
In conclusion, as I understood pedagogical humor has many advantages but at times it can be risky. Therefore, instructor should be intelligent enough to select what to say, when to say and how to say to make Learning Teaching process an enjoyable one