Follow-Up on July 7th Post on Teaching with Humor

Some ways to get humor into courses appeared in a box in the Monitor article mentioned in my July 7th post. With a little imagination, the ideas for courses can easily be applied to conference presenations. Here they are: (a) Make the syllabus funny. For example, insert a description under a course title like "the grestest class you'll ever take." Or list office hours for one of your days "from 12 to 12:01 PM." I'll be you can do better than these examples. (b) Use real or hypothetical humorous situations such as cartoons or TV clips to illustrate points. (c) Ask punch-line qestions during question and anwwer sessions. For example, set up a joke by asking a question and after getting a response ask, "How many of you think this is the correct answer?" Then add the punch, "How many of you don't care?" or "How many of you don't like to be awakedned during class?" (d) Make questions and examples outrageous, ridiculous or exaggerated. I'm sure you can use some true stories from RT incidents to employ this tip! (e) Dramatize your material. Here the suggestion is to "Develop skits or demonstrations with music to illustrate theories, concepts, or processes." As I prepare this post, the thought in the back of my mind is that ideas, such as these presented, may be most valuable because they lead to even more creative notions being developed by the reader.