Who Say’s Teachers Can’t Be Funny? An Analysis of the Success of Humor in the Classroom

RM 215

This study examines instructional humor and how it enhances students affective learning. Typically, a healthy learning environment with successful students does not always come from a serious classroom. Instructional humor can lighten the classroom climate and is a tool that every instructor should have at their disposal. Students use of humor (i.e. a class clown) is outside of the scope of this study, primarily, this study dives into describing research associated with classroom humor, how it affects different genders, and why humor is beneficial in the classroom. Particularly, associating the areas of study with arousal theory, expectancy violation theory, and instructional humor processing theory to explain why instructional humor is beneficial. The results show that a numerous amount of benefits come from utilizing instructional humor, however, the present research cannot be generalized, because there is not an effective way to measure learning. Although it cannot be generalized, teacher humor can persuade students to be more interested in content and want to participate more in creating a healthy classroom climate.