Humor: Handle with Care

Humor is a very effective tool to teach. Who doesn't like to enjoy a humorous situation? Why is humor not used popularly across training programs? Because it is risky, you may end up:

• Offending the learner
• Not getting through to the learner as it my go over his/her head (no offense meant to the learner)
  
• Not making the learner laugh as he/she doesn't think it is funny

Another reason is that stakeholders typically think humor will make take the seriousness away from learning. They are worried that humor will dilute the issue. My take on this is as long as learning happens any strategy that best suits the learner can be used.

How can humor be used? Humor can be displayed using characters with funny characteristics, funny situations or funny portrayals of situations, comic strips, and so on. You need to keep the following in mind when using humor.

1. Know thy learners: First, understand your learners. Identify whether they would appreciate humor. Think about whether humor is the best strategy to get through to the learners.
2. Culture issue: When using humor, ensure you know your learners well enough to avoid offending the learner by mocking a culturally sensitive issue. Do not use blonde jokes, sexist jokes, sarcasm, and so on.
   
3. Personal values: Ensure that the humor does not offend the learner's personal values and belief systems.
   
4. Generalizations: Avoid making generalizations about a particular group. You are most likely to alienate your learners. It make more sense to introduce a stereotype character than taint an entire group.
   
5. Real life: Learner should be able to relate to it. The humor should be in sync with the work environment. It should reflect situations/characters around the learner.

What kind of humor can we use? Subtle humor, in-face-kind of humor (Mr. Bean), comic strips, situational humor, and so on. I have still not managed to design a course that has humor as the core strategy. Guess we have not come across the right audience. We have used humor as an introduction to a particular concept. More like a gain attention screen that displays humorous situations to capture the learner's interest. This works well too. It helps lighten the mood before taking the learner to some actual learning.

If you have come across courses with humor used well, do share!

Feedback - A Powerful Learning Tool

Feedback as a teaching tool is majorly underestimated. Several courses include feedback as "That's correct!" or "That's incorrect!" How useful is this to the learner? Feedback should include a rationale. The learner should be made aware of why he/she got it right or wrong. Feedbacks plays a key role in:

• Reinforcing learning
• Motivating the learner
• Checking an incorrect association of concepts or misinterpretation
  
• Informing the learners about their strengths and focus areas
• Making the learner think about the rationale
  

The error-correcting action of feedback is effective when it follows a response that the learner selected. Feedback must be immediate. This kind of feedback registers in the minds of the learners. It is an effective teaching tool. Feedback should be positive and encouraging. Challenging exercises are not created to ensure that the learner gets it wrong. Therefore, the feedback should not sound like aha-I-got-you. It should not be harsh and derogatory. We are not trying to make the learner feel small and inefficient. I remember this incident from my childhood. When in 3rd (Greenfield's School, Delhi), I was asked to come forward and identify where the pancreas is located. My answer was incorrect and as feedback my teacher poked into my tummy and said "Is this where your pancreas is located?" Now, this incident had terrible impact on me as a child. I was petrified of answering in class. No feedback is probably better than offensive feedback.

Feedback should be given for both correct and incorrect answers. If the answer is incorrect, provide the learner with another opportunity to rethink his/her answer. If the learner fails to answer correctly after two attempts, provide the correct answer and the logic for the incorrect options.

Came across an interesting article on The Importance of Feedback in Human Behavior. Check it out.