The Power of Humor in the Classroom
The Power Of Humor And Improvisation In The Classroom
Roz Trieber, MS, CHES
Higher education is often called “death by lecture.” More recently it is called “death by “PowerPoint.” How much do you think students remember or even talk about after hearing your presentations? What are they telling their friends, Romans, and Countrymen? Oh, I mean classmates?
Let the rumors begin! You are guilty of increasing their learning quotient with Humor and Improvisation. These creative strategies grab the student’s attention, build rapport, and stimulate the right and left brain to new levels of productivity. Don’t you feel great already? It’s all your fault or creative genius!
Effective communication involves more than the spoken word. Speakers need to know and apply the Mehrabian Model of Communication (1981). Mehrabian established this classic statistic for the effectiveness of spoken communications:
• 7% of meaning is in the words that are spoken.
• 38% of meaning is paralinguistic (the way that the words are said).
• 55% of meaning is in facial expression.
What does this tell us?
Evidence-based research demonstrates collaborative and creative approaches (such as humor and improvisation) result in an engaged, participating student, increased higher order thinking (such as contrasting and evaluating), individual and group accountability. In addition, humor and improvisation strategies enhance class discussion and role play, build teamwork, encourage risk taking, improve critical thinking, and stimulate creativity (Berk, 1996, 2002, 2003; Gardner, 1993; Goleman, 1998; Koppett, 2001). Improvisation exercises and humor strategies are tools you can add to your arsenal of teaching and speaking techniques increasing student awareness of problems and ideas fundamental to their intellectual development.
Dare to go where few speakers have gone before and try any one of the following innovative ways of having your message heard.
1. Warnings on handouts such as: “You could be a winner! No purchase necessary; details inside.”
2. One - liners on transparencies or on handouts such as:
• “Why do fat chance and slim chance mean the same thing?”
• “Energizer Bunny arrested and charged with battery.”
3. Create parodies from popular TV Sitcoms, Broadway Musicals, and from music your audience is listening to now. Imagine opening with a parody of Star Trek. The room is darkened, you have a flash light on as you enter reciting your objectives using the theme of the “Final Frontier and taking your audience where few students have gone before!” You play the music from Star Trek as you speak the last words of your parody. Your audience is “putty in your hands!”
4. Use the “Top Ten” principle for any subject you are speaking. Make them humorous as you emphasize the most important points of your presentation. You could have:
• “Top 10 Ways To Alienate Your Class Mates”
• “The Top 10 Ways To Prevent Your Best Friend From Using Drugs!”
5. Rap It Up. Have students write “Rap or Poems” about the most important points you made in your class or presentation. Have volunteers read or perform their creation. Laughter will be pouring out of the doors and windows; not to mention the lesson will never be forgotten!
6. Introduce Improvisational Theater Techniques to the classroom and your audiences. Improvisation has been defined as intuition guiding action in a spontaneous way.
• Yes, and…The Golden Rule: Say yes, accept the offer, build on it, contribute, and discover new ideas. A person must make an offer of his own in response to his partner’s. It is this process that harnesses the power of collaboration. Each team member is responsible for contributing to and supporting the group’s activity. With this method, brainstorming leads to innovative solutions, improved critical thinking skills, and incredible listening skills; not to mention instant replay of realizing how well your message was synthesized! What could be better than that?
• Goals: Improve listening skills, foster cooperation, learn to accept offers
• Directions for implementation
Players must agree with the others no matter what is said
Player 1 begins a conversation with a positive declarative statement
Player 2 agrees with player 1 by first saying “yes and…”then making his/her own declarative statement. After responding positively, you carry the conversation and the story forward by adding to the information.
If player one says “Let’s go to the movies.” Player two might answer, “Yes, and let’s sneak some popcorn into the theater.” Player one says “Yes, and I’ll put the butter in my pocket.”
This format allows the conversation to continue and develop in interesting ways
“Yes, but…” or even answering “yes” without the “and” is not enough.
“Yes, and…” plus another declarative sentence opens the scene to unlimited possibilities
Engage Your Audience One Word At A Time. It’s not unintelligent or unprofessional. Here is an excellent way to increase communication skills, stimulate creativity, and discover how much of your message was heard.
Here’s how it works:
1. Have participants stand in a circle.
2. Pick a topic or a title for the story.
3. Create work- at- a – time “proverbs,” which summarize the learning of your training material or teaching material.
4. Give each person in the circle only one turn, so that the proverb or story must end with the last person. You can have several circles going at one time. Identify a recorder and a spokesperson from each circle. When each circle has completed their proverb, have each spokesperson share their proverb.
5. Participants can end sentences with the inflection of their voice.
6. Encourage eye contact and speed.
7. Debrief with the following questions:
a. When did you feel satisfied?
b. Did you censor yourself/ How?
c. What would happen if we did this everyday for a month?
d. How is this like teamwork on a job or in class?
e. Spontaneous laughter, critical thinking, self-assessment, and self –confidence are outcomes this kind of participant engagement.
As speakers, you can use these techniques with your audiences to demonstrate how much content information they were able to process as well as demonstrating spontaneous thinking skills, reducing the fear of making mistakes, and gaining confidence. In addition you and your audience will have had fun learning with each other. The best part about this technique: neither you or your audience need a degree in acting!
References:
Berk, R. A. (1996). Student ratings of 10 strategies for using humor in college
teaching. Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, 7(3), 71–92.
Berk, R. A. (2002). Humor as an instructional defibrillator: Evidence-based techniques in teaching and assessment. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing.
Berk, R. A. (2003). Professors are from Mars, Students are from Snickers: How to write and deliver humor in the classroom and in professional presentations. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing.
Gardner, H. (1993). Multiple intelligences: The theory in practice. New York: Basic Books.
Goleman, D. (1998). Working with emotional intelligence. New York: Bantam Books.
Koppett, K. (2001). Training to Imagine. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing.
Mehrabian, A. (1981). Silent messages: Implicit communication of emotions and attitudes (2nd ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Roz Trieber, MS, CHES
Higher education is often called “death by lecture.” More recently it is called “death by “PowerPoint.” How much do you think students remember or even talk about after hearing your presentations? What are they telling their friends, Romans, and Countrymen? Oh, I mean classmates?
Let the rumors begin! You are guilty of increasing their learning quotient with Humor and Improvisation. These creative strategies grab the student’s attention, build rapport, and stimulate the right and left brain to new levels of productivity. Don’t you feel great already? It’s all your fault or creative genius!
Effective communication involves more than the spoken word. Speakers need to know and apply the Mehrabian Model of Communication (1981). Mehrabian established this classic statistic for the effectiveness of spoken communications:
• 7% of meaning is in the words that are spoken.
• 38% of meaning is paralinguistic (the way that the words are said).
• 55% of meaning is in facial expression.
What does this tell us?
Evidence-based research demonstrates collaborative and creative approaches (such as humor and improvisation) result in an engaged, participating student, increased higher order thinking (such as contrasting and evaluating), individual and group accountability. In addition, humor and improvisation strategies enhance class discussion and role play, build teamwork, encourage risk taking, improve critical thinking, and stimulate creativity (Berk, 1996, 2002, 2003; Gardner, 1993; Goleman, 1998; Koppett, 2001). Improvisation exercises and humor strategies are tools you can add to your arsenal of teaching and speaking techniques increasing student awareness of problems and ideas fundamental to their intellectual development.
Dare to go where few speakers have gone before and try any one of the following innovative ways of having your message heard.
1. Warnings on handouts such as: “You could be a winner! No purchase necessary; details inside.”
2. One - liners on transparencies or on handouts such as:
• “Why do fat chance and slim chance mean the same thing?”
• “Energizer Bunny arrested and charged with battery.”
3. Create parodies from popular TV Sitcoms, Broadway Musicals, and from music your audience is listening to now. Imagine opening with a parody of Star Trek. The room is darkened, you have a flash light on as you enter reciting your objectives using the theme of the “Final Frontier and taking your audience where few students have gone before!” You play the music from Star Trek as you speak the last words of your parody. Your audience is “putty in your hands!”
4. Use the “Top Ten” principle for any subject you are speaking. Make them humorous as you emphasize the most important points of your presentation. You could have:
• “Top 10 Ways To Alienate Your Class Mates”
• “The Top 10 Ways To Prevent Your Best Friend From Using Drugs!”
5. Rap It Up. Have students write “Rap or Poems” about the most important points you made in your class or presentation. Have volunteers read or perform their creation. Laughter will be pouring out of the doors and windows; not to mention the lesson will never be forgotten!
6. Introduce Improvisational Theater Techniques to the classroom and your audiences. Improvisation has been defined as intuition guiding action in a spontaneous way.
• Yes, and…The Golden Rule: Say yes, accept the offer, build on it, contribute, and discover new ideas. A person must make an offer of his own in response to his partner’s. It is this process that harnesses the power of collaboration. Each team member is responsible for contributing to and supporting the group’s activity. With this method, brainstorming leads to innovative solutions, improved critical thinking skills, and incredible listening skills; not to mention instant replay of realizing how well your message was synthesized! What could be better than that?
• Goals: Improve listening skills, foster cooperation, learn to accept offers
• Directions for implementation
Players must agree with the others no matter what is said
Player 1 begins a conversation with a positive declarative statement
Player 2 agrees with player 1 by first saying “yes and…”then making his/her own declarative statement. After responding positively, you carry the conversation and the story forward by adding to the information.
If player one says “Let’s go to the movies.” Player two might answer, “Yes, and let’s sneak some popcorn into the theater.” Player one says “Yes, and I’ll put the butter in my pocket.”
This format allows the conversation to continue and develop in interesting ways
“Yes, but…” or even answering “yes” without the “and” is not enough.
“Yes, and…” plus another declarative sentence opens the scene to unlimited possibilities
Engage Your Audience One Word At A Time. It’s not unintelligent or unprofessional. Here is an excellent way to increase communication skills, stimulate creativity, and discover how much of your message was heard.
Here’s how it works:
1. Have participants stand in a circle.
2. Pick a topic or a title for the story.
3. Create work- at- a – time “proverbs,” which summarize the learning of your training material or teaching material.
4. Give each person in the circle only one turn, so that the proverb or story must end with the last person. You can have several circles going at one time. Identify a recorder and a spokesperson from each circle. When each circle has completed their proverb, have each spokesperson share their proverb.
5. Participants can end sentences with the inflection of their voice.
6. Encourage eye contact and speed.
7. Debrief with the following questions:
a. When did you feel satisfied?
b. Did you censor yourself/ How?
c. What would happen if we did this everyday for a month?
d. How is this like teamwork on a job or in class?
e. Spontaneous laughter, critical thinking, self-assessment, and self –confidence are outcomes this kind of participant engagement.
As speakers, you can use these techniques with your audiences to demonstrate how much content information they were able to process as well as demonstrating spontaneous thinking skills, reducing the fear of making mistakes, and gaining confidence. In addition you and your audience will have had fun learning with each other. The best part about this technique: neither you or your audience need a degree in acting!
References:
Berk, R. A. (1996). Student ratings of 10 strategies for using humor in college
teaching. Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, 7(3), 71–92.
Berk, R. A. (2002). Humor as an instructional defibrillator: Evidence-based techniques in teaching and assessment. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing.
Berk, R. A. (2003). Professors are from Mars, Students are from Snickers: How to write and deliver humor in the classroom and in professional presentations. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing.
Gardner, H. (1993). Multiple intelligences: The theory in practice. New York: Basic Books.
Goleman, D. (1998). Working with emotional intelligence. New York: Bantam Books.
Koppett, K. (2001). Training to Imagine. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing.
Mehrabian, A. (1981). Silent messages: Implicit communication of emotions and attitudes (2nd ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
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