Humor in the Classroom with Dr. Andrés Varhola

Field, Lab, Earth

Episode Title: Humor in the Classroom with Dr. Andrés Varhola

Show notes:

““His lectures were like watching a show on Netflix”: A success story of laugh tracks in prerecorded undergraduate lessons” with Dr. Andrés Varhola.

When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, teachers had to rapidly adapt to new, fully online teaching environments. For Andrés, who had a naturally humorous teaching style, he needed to not only find a way to teach his students well, but to do so in a way that still reflected his personal teaching philosophy. In this episode, Andrés discusses how the use of laugh tracks, memes, and a pleasant, light-hearted tone helped him and his students thrive.

Tune in to learn:

· What research exists about the impact of humor on student performance and interest

· What types of humor can be used in the classroom

· How to balance different types of humor in lectures

· How students responded to having laugh tracks and jokes in the lectures

If you would like more information about this topic, this episode’s paper is available here: https://doi.org/10.1002/nse2.20092

This paper is always freely available.

Contact us at [email protected] or on Twitter @FieldLabEarth if you have comments, questions, or suggestions for show topics, and if you want more content like this don’t forget to subscribe. If you’d like to see old episodes or sign up for our newsletter, you can do so here: https://fieldlabearth.libsyn.com/.

If you would like to reach out to Andrés, you can find him here: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/avarhola Forestry Faculty profile: http://profiles.forestry.ubc.ca/person/andres-varhola Amazon profile: https://amazon.com/author/avarhola

If you would like to reach out to Navdeep Godara from our Student Spotlight, you can find him here: Twitter: https://twitter.com/godara_nav LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/navdeep-godara-84b307171/

Resources

Transcripts: https://www.rev.com/transcript-editor/shared/SZzyU-hdsrKDUqPbHxyjoOTDNxjX1BvP0WfUmsP_2BVoDILNV0C6G4JS3YNQ3iBLPFY-HfpFTPdUoVMlDKaiR7pr9pA?loadFrom=SharedLink

Examples of Humor from Andrés’ lectures: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRe5_3Odwlo

Natural Sciences Education special section Covid-19 Forced Rapid Changes in Education, but Which Changes Should We Keep?: https://acsess.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/21688281/2022/51/2

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