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Did you hear the one about the funny lecturer?

29 January 2024 | Story Igno van Niekerk | Photo Igno van Niekerk

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

National 3MT competition held at UFS

2017-03-29

The two winners of the Three minute thesis
competition, Andrew Verrijdt (left) and
Kerryn Warren (right).
Photo: Charl Devenish

From Neanderthal hybrid children to eating corn silk as a way of managing kidney diseases, the National Three Minute Thesis competition (3MT) captivated the mind.

“We brought the competition to South Africa and hosted the local, regional, and national competitions for the past few years,” said Dr Emmie Smit, organiser of the event. It is an opportunity to raise the profile of postgraduate research and to develop a cross-disciplinary student community to effectively communicate research to a wide audience. The event was founded by the University of Queensland, Australia. The third national 3MT competition took place at the University of the Free State (UFS) on Friday 24 March 2017.

Three minutes and one slide
During the competition, participants had three minutes to explain their master’s or doctoral research and one static PowerPoint slide could be used. “It is very important that this slide works for you. There must be some way the information on the slide connects to what you present,” said Dr Henriette van den Berg, Director of the Postgraduate School at the UFS.

Winners grateful for opportunity
“It is an honour and a drive. It is very nice to have this sort of thumbs up,” said Kerryn Warren, winner of the Science category. Her research title was, What did a Human-Neanderthal Child Look Like? “I have been looking at the hybrids between different species and subspecies of mice in order to use them as a model to find out what human hybrids looked like.”

The presentation by Andrew Verrijdt, winner of the Humanities category, entitled Hiding in the Deep: Anonymous Websites for Paedophiles on the ‘Darknet’, gave a glimpse into the mysterious and dangerous realm of the dark web. “I am grateful for the opportunity. Primarily because I think it’s an important topic, and society will benefit by getting the word out there as it is a sensitive topic,” he said. The two winners, both from the University of the Cape Town, won R15 000 each. A further R30 000 of prize money went to the four runners-up.

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