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29 January 2024 | Story Igno van Niekerk | Photo Igno van Niekerk
Prof Jannie Pretorius
Prof Jannie Pretorius uses an engaging and humorous teaching style that keeps his Life Science and Natural Science students fascinated and engaged.

Once upon a time, there was a monotonous teacher: the students did not like his lectures. Nothing interesting ever happened. The teacher grew old and retired. The end. Or not? According to research, teaching can be a humorous, fun, and enjoyable experience if you do it differently.

Mr Bean videos and Trevor Noah in the class

Prof Jannie Pretorius, a lecturer in the School of Mathematics, Natural Sciences, and Technology, uses an engaging and humorous teaching style that keeps his Life Science and Natural Science students fascinated and engaged. When starting out at the UFS, Prof Jannie wondered about using humour in a “serious tertiary environment.” He soon discovered that students, like most other people, also enjoy appropriate humour.

Using humour in education turned into a research project, and Prof Pretorius found himself showing Mr Bean videos and watching Trevor Noah shows to develop a lesson where the impact of using intentional humour was studied by measuring students’ reactions. An example from the transcription of his class on the mating habits of the praying mantis, where the female often bites the male’s head off to eat him for nourishment, shows how fun can be integrated into learning:

So, it seems that the praying mantis is like – praying; the male is saying: ‘Please don’t eat me, Sylvia, please!’… (laughter) … and she would pray back and say, ‘Please, Ronnie, I can’t resist you.’ (laughter).

Sensitive to their learners’ preferences

Despite the classes being fun, Prof Pretorius also cautions that it is important for teachers to be sensitive to their learners’ preferences and cultural backgrounds when using humour. “There is always an element of risk in the use of humour. As such, humour should always be used in a respectful and inclusive manner to ensure that all learners feel comfortable and included in the classroom.”

Prof Pretorius recognises that the use of humour depends on educators’ personal preferences. Ultimately, it is about what the students learn.

Listen to Prof Jannie Pretorius talk about his research. 

News Archive

Prof Tredoux turns theories regarding the formation of metals on its head
2013-09-17

 

Prof Marian Tredoux
17 September 2013

The latest research conducted by Prof Marian Tredoux of the Department of Geology, in collaboration with her research assistant Bianca Kennedy and their colleagues in Germany, placed established theories regarding how minerals of the platinum-group of elements are formed, under close scrutiny.

The article on this research of which Prof Tredoux is a co-author – ‘Noble metal nanoclusters and nanoparticles precede mineral formation in magmatic sulphide melts’ – was published in Nature Communications on 6 September 2013. It is an online journal for research of the highest quality in the fields of biological, physical and chemical sciences.

This study found that atoms of platinum and arsenic create nanoclusters, long before the mineral sperrylite can crystallise. Thus, the platinum does not occur as a primary sulphur compound. The research was conducted at the Steinmann Institute of the University of Bonn, Germany, as well as here in Bloemfontein.

Monetary support from Inkaba yeAfrica – a German-South African multidisciplinary and intercultural Earth Science collaborative of the National Research Foundation (NRF) – made this research possible. Studies are now also being conducted on other metals in the precious metal group, specifically palladium, rhodium and ruthenium.

The discovery of the nanoclusters and the combination with arsenic can have far-reaching consequences for the platinum mine industry, if it can be utilised to recover a greater amount of platinum ore and therefore less wastage ending up in mine dumps. This will signify optimal mining of a scarce and valuable metal, one of South Africa’s most important export products.

For Prof Tredoux, the research results also prove thoughts she already had some twenty years ago around the forming of platinum minerals. “Researchers laughed in my face, but the evidence had to wait for the development of technology to prove it.” Young researchers were very excited at recent congresses about the findings, since the new models can bring new insights.

“Chemistry researchers have been talking about platinum element clusters in watery environments for quite a while, but it was thought that these would not appear in magmas (molten rock) due to the high temperatures (>1 000 degrees celsius).”

Prof Tredoux has already delivered lectures at congresses in Scotland, Hungary, Sweden and Italy on this research.

Read the article at: http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2013/130906/ncomms3405/full/ncomms3405.html

 

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