Every conversation about online education seems to focus on the negative effects it has on students and learning. A not-so-popular topic about this conversation but an important one is how remote learning can affect the teacher’s use of humor.
Scholars have formulated various explanations for why people use humor. Scott Henderson is someone who has helped prepare and provides professional development for prospective and veteran teachers for more than 30 years and he is often asked whether humor is an effective way to teach and with decades of research has left little doubt that the answer is yes. Among other benefits humor can create a positive learning environment increase learning and make students more excited and eager to excited to learn.
The pandemic hasn’t eliminated the benefits of humor in the classroom but it has definitely made it more difficult to use humor when their students appear on video screens than in actual classrooms.
Mathematics professor David Madway has been truly blessed not only to receive the gift of being a mathematician, but he is also quite humorous as well and likes to bring his sense of humor to the classroom. However ever since teaching virtual classes his teaching methods have changed. “I always tried to use my sense of humor while teaching math because math is known to present anxiety. cracking a few jokes or involving a little sense of humor in each lesson would take the stress away from students while learning,” Madway said. “Right now, involving humor in each lesson is just not my main priority. I feel as if I am always behind and I can never read the room to tell whether students are actually even understanding the lesson especially when I am only viewing black screens,” Madway added.
Nune Grigoryan, assistant communications professor, also explained that she has used her sense of humor definitely more in the classroom than virtually. “When I am sharing the same space with my students it is easier to pick up on social cues. Using humor in the classroom has been scientifically proven to get students engaged in the classroom. Throughout my years of teaching, I have learned that students remember better if they are laughing and there is research that supports that,” Grigoryan said.
One reason why this has been so difficult is that many clues get missed throughout the virtual session. Humor is primarily social in nature, meaning it occurs when people interact. For this reason, successful humor depends on people being able to pick up on contextual clues including gestures, facial expressions, and posture. It also involves pitch, speed, and the rhythm of a person’s voice. Remote instruction can make it more difficult to pick up on or make sense of these types of things.
The second reason can be technical problems. The poor quality of audio and video connections can further distort a teacher’s voice and image as well as student’s responses. Mark Shatz, psychology professor and author of a book on secrets to writing comedy puts it “The Virtual platform removes or minimizes the feedback loop that guides humor selection and delivery.” Making matters worse cellphones with their tiny screens and speakers are preferred or only internet connection for some students and words often get garbled and gestures are miniaturized beyond recognition on cellular devices.
Reason number three is that laughter is less contagious. Humor is social in another respect. We often rely on the subtle and not-so-subtle reactions of others to confirm if something is funny. That is not possible when only a few students can or want to be seen during remote instruction. Hearing someone else laugh can trigger us to smile or laugh ourselves. Sitcoms on television use laugh tracks for that very reason. They coax viewers into making desired responses.
These types of desired responses often lack remote instruction, especially if students have their camera on mute. Andrew Barnhill, an assistant professor of public service, found out this past fall that students aren’t able to easily feed off of each other’s reactions to comments in the same way they do in person. Audio also tends to delay which can cause students to speak over one another in a jerky stop and start rhythm.
Reason number four is when the camera is on, the laughs are off. There are many things to consider when researching humor. In one study, participants were overtly videotaped watching excerpts from popular television comedies. When students were aware of the camera’s presence they laughed less. Overall, they found that the camera was a huge buzzkill.
The fifth reason can be obvious- too many distractions. Many students or instructors could be dealing with crying babies or family members or roommates wandering in the background. Comedian W.C Fields once observed a similar situation like this one advising people in entertainment to never work with children or animals because they steal attention.
Although tough times are being faced right now instructors should not give up on humor in remote learning. The challenge seems not to be for teachers to adapt to new technology but to understand what makes something funny in the first place.
Humor can never ideally be targeted to a certain group. It is more art than science, humor must respond to an ever-changing set of circumstances and personalities which is the key to survival
“W.C. Fields” by twm1340 is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
