Abstract:

Teachers are struggling to survive and thrive in classrooms where a myriad of issues threaten their emotional health, teaching self-efficacy, and job satisfaction. This session offers case-specific interventions that highlight humor in the classroom with positive role-playing and interactive collaborations.

Teachers’ perceptions of their ability to motivate and promote student learning was introduced in the social cognitive theory and is referred to as self-efficacy (Bandura, 1997). Essentially, what teachers believe about their ability to perform a task is far more potent than their ability to actually perform the task (Pajares, 2002). Social cognitive theory prescribes four sources of influence (enactive mastery experiences, vicarious experiences, verbal persuasion and affective arousal) to control teachers’ perceptions of efficacy. In the area of affective arousal, humor significantly supports teachers’ emotional health (Evans-Palmer, 2010).

The speaker explored the relationship between the multidimensional constructs of humor and self-efficacy in a quantitative study and found a moderate, positive relationship between teachers’ social humor and instructional efficacy. The findings support the conclusion that characteristics akin to dispositions emerge at conceptual intersections when the results, along with the literatures for humor and self-efficacy are compared. The assertion is that teachers who possess high self-efficacy and high humor orientation are likely to demonstrate:
(a) social connectedness (immediacy) because of their keen sensitivity to emotional cues, and
(b) emotional intelligence to gain immediacy and rapport with students.
(c) They are capable of innovative, divergent thinking,
(d) They are optimistic that they can maintain the resiliency to adversity that is necessary to override stressors
(e) They are capable of adapting instruction through self-monitoring to match mitigating factors in the classroom.

References:
[1] Bandura, A. (1997). Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control. New York: W. H. Freeman.
[2] Berk, R. (2002). Humor as an instructional defibrillator. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing.
[3] Evans-Palmer, T. (2010). The Potency of Humor and Instructional Self-Efficacy on Art Teacher Stress. Studies in Art Education 52(1), 69-83.
[4] Glasser, W. (1997). Choice theory and student success. The Education Digest, 63, 16-21.
[5] Martin, R. (2007). The psychology of humor; An integrative approach. Burlington, MA: Elsevier Academic Press.
[6] Opplinger, P., & Zillman, D. (2003). Humor and learning. In J. Bryant, D. Roskos-Ewoldsen & J. Cantor (Eds.), Communication and emotion: Essays in honor of Dolf Zillman, 255-273.
[7] Pajares, F. (2002). Overview of social cognitive theory and self-efficacy. Retrieved June 18, 2008 from http://www.emory.edu/EDUCATION/mfp/eff.html
[8] Torok, S., McMorris, R., & Lin, W. (2004). Is humor an appreciated teacher tool? Perceptions of professors' teaching styles and use of humor. College Teaching, 52(1), 14-20..
[9] Wrench, J. & McCroskey, J. (2001). A temperamental understanding of humor communication an exhilaratability. Communication Quarterly, 49(2), 142-159.
[10] Ziv, A. (1988). Teaching and learning with humor; experiment and replication. The Journal of Experimental Education, 57, 5-15.

Keywords:

Teacher self-efficacy, disposition, humor, immediacy, divergent thinking, emotional intelligence, resilience, innovation, instruction, engagement.