By Nathalie Medina, Age 11
What do you know about teachers making their students laugh?
It turns out that humor affects learning retention by making things easier to remember. A study from the University of Georgia found that students were more engaged and more positive when their instructor was funnier, according to Futurity. And children in a study who watched humorous segments of Sesame Street scored higher on assignments and engaged better than those who watched nonhumorous clips, reports Edutopia.
Another benefit of humor in class is that students will be more interested in what the teacher is saying if used in the right context. “Humor activates the brain’s dopamine reward system, and cognitive studies show that dopamine is important for both goal-oriented motivation and long-term memory,” reports Edutopia. Using humor can be especially useful for teen learning because it makes them more focused and able to remember things more easily.
Humor is important in learning beyond just the facts that you learn. “People might look at emotions and say, ‘Oh, you know, that doesn’t really matter. What matters is they’re learning,’” says Erin Dolan, a coauthor of the University of Georgia study and a professor in biochemistry and molecular biology, to Futurity. “Emotions influence our learning and our motivation to continue with a subject.”
However, some uses of humor don’t help kids. Studies found that appropriate humor increased retention, but inappropriate humor did not, according to Edutopia. And it will not help if students find the jokes really unfunny. Also a student can think a teacher is funny, but still not show any improvement in retention.
This topic is important because it can help teachers understand how humor can help their students and try to see patterns in their students’ grades. There are multiple ways for teachers to help students through jokes, like including jokes about whatever they are teaching or showing humorous learning videos. But, of course, teachers should not make out-of-context or inappropriate/racist jokes.
