ASCD Annual Conferenceformerly known as the Association for

Supervision and Curriculum Development

• Critical Transformations

• 21st Century Skills• Collaboration and Partnership• Diversity in Education• Instructional Technology• Planning and Leadership• School Restructuring and Reform

Laughing and Learning: An Alternative to Shut Up and Listen

Peter M. Jonas, PhDChair, Doctoral Leadership Studies DepartmentCardinal Stritch University

pmjonas@stritch.edu http://faculty.stritch.edu/pmjonasCopyright [Peter M. Jonas] [2009]. This work is the intellectual property of the author. Permission is granted for this material to be shared for non-commercial, educational purposes, provided that this copyright statement appears on the reproduced materials and notice is given that the copying is by permission of the author. To disseminate otherwise or to republish requires written permission from the author.

“Once you get people laughing, they’re listening and you can tell them almost anything.”

--Herbert Gardner

Remembering Speeches

• After 10 minutes, 10% will be drifting off

• After 15 minutes, 10% more will be taking mental vacations

• After 20 minutes, another 25% will be dreaming of sexual fantasies

• So, I have no apologies for the pleasure I am about to give 25% of you. (I expect a standing ovation at the end.)

• We can listen four times faster than people can speak, so students (audience) tend to take “field trips” when someone is talking.

•Stigler and Hiebert (1999)--digital video not only may enhance the teaching environment but the technology can add to the culture in classrooms.

•Goodman (2003) researched the positive teaching and learning aspects of students using videos to produce documentaries as forms of art.

•Lawson, Bodle, and MacDonough (2007) discovered that videos are best used when teachers utilized driving, or guided questions

MemorySight

Hear

Touch

Smell

Taste

Immediate

MemoryWorking

Memory

Long

Term

Storage

Sensory

Register out out

Cognitive

Belief

System

The only person who does not fear change is a baby with wet diapers.

The picture’s pretty bleak, gentlemen… The world’s climates are

changing, the mammals are

taking over, and we all have a

brain about the size of a walnut.

Women and men like different types of humor.

Men like slap-stick and women appreciate more sophisticated humor.

Ten Laws of Humor by Peter Jonas• 1. Develop a database of jokes, stories,

sayings.• 2. You do not have to re-invent the wheel.

Search the internet – remember, research is nothing more than legalized plagiarism.

• 3. Always look for connections with your material.

• 4. As you complete the lesson plans, be sure to plan out the jokes, stories, humorous activities.

• 5. Collect overheads and be sure to label them or categorize them.

• 6. Keep track of the reactions you get with various jokes, stories, and activities.

• 7. Look at reality for some of the funniest things to discuss and use.

• 8. Do not be afraid to encourage individuals to develop a sense of humor in your organization.

• 9. Just do it. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes.• 10. Be sure that you have tenure or another

job before you try any of the suggestions above.

Withered Dendrites and Stress

• Microsoft Power Point Instructional Focus 0708

• rcs.k12.va.us/instruction/forms/instfocus.pdf

• This power point is copy protected, so we couldn’t add it into ours, but check it out.

• If you missed Donna Stimpson & Kealey Knights’s session on Teaching with Poverty in Mind, you can find many references to Eric Jensen’s research and techniques here.

• Six Principles for Using Videos

• 1. Encourage laughing to build feeling of unity – especially with today’s video generation.

• 2. The video should be short – less than 3 minutes.

• 3. The video MUST be connected to content.

• 4. The video should be appropriate to the situation – no sex, violence, vulgar language, etc.

• 5. Don’t be afraid to make the audience think about the joke and “reach” for the humor.

• 6. Sharing the material should be a serious venture, but never take yourself seriously.

Motivating Students using Brain-Based Teaching Strategies

www.allbusiness.com/agriculture-forestry-fishing-hunting/1046039-1.html

Enriched visual learning environments are important for brain-based instruction. Our eyes are capable of registering 36,000 visual messages per hour. Additionally between 80 and 90 percent of all information that is absorbed by our brain is visual. Concrete visual images that contain contrast, movement and color are particularly important in attracting learner attention. Specifically, the brain is hard-wired to identify objects that differ from a group of objects. For example, if you study the advertisements in your favorite magazine you will notice that savvy advertisers use not only vivid but sometimes shocking images to bring attention to their products. Visual instructional strategies include working models, project-based assignments, varied information mediums (e.g., videos, cameras and computers) and an assortment of art supplies. Also think about adding pictures, graphics, charts, graphs, bulletin boards and video segments to presentations and classroom environments.

The attached photograph shows two almost identical dolphins leaping out of the water side-by-side. It is a picture used in a study of stress levels at major hospitals. The study had subjects look at the picture and describe any differences they observed between the two dolphins. The closely monitored study revealed that a person under stress would find differences between the virtually identical dolphins pictured. Moreover, subjects experiencing a great amount of stress found many differences between the two dolphins. Now look at the following photograph. Do you observe notable differences between the two dolphins?

We did that last year – how come we have to do it again this year?