Using Fun as a Strategy for Student Engagement

A paper delivered (as a presentation) at the inaugural Northumbria University Pathway Learning and Teaching Conference, 20th September 2024

Executive Summary

The significance of student engagement to the overall learning journey and student experience cannot be overstated, not least due to its linkage to the ability of students to better relate to and connect with what is being taught. One of the major issues identified as negatively impacting student engagement is the lack of enjoyment experienced by students which has led to a variety of strategies being proffered as solutions to this issue, one of which is the intentional incorporation of fun by lecturers in their classrooms. The results of a quick poll of four student groups identified a few common themes about what they felt constituted a fun and enjoyable lesson. This paper looks specifically at classroom engagement, exploring the concept of fun in various forms and how it connects to the classroom. It provides several recommendations including the use of case studies variations and humour, and how practitioners can incorporate these into their delivery with the aim of improving overall enjoyment and engagement in the classroom.

Introduction

When students think about attending lectures, it is very doubtful that they are filled with much excitement. I’m sure there is hope that the lecture will be enjoyable, i.e., ‘I hope today’s class will be interesting’, but I very much doubt that they are thinking ‘Yay! It’s time for my Practising Business Strategy class!’ I have no doubt however, that there are students who really and truly enjoy and look forward to lectures, but I fear they may be the exception and not the rule. This is based purely on anecdotal evidence and my own experiences as both a student and lecturer, rather than any empirical evidence however, regardless of this, the continuous pursuit to improve classroom engagement is critical to providing students with an effective and enjoyable learning journey.

Student Engagement

Student engagement is critical to transformation of the overall student experience and has been linked to the ability of students to learn better, connect more effectively with topics being taught and improvement in their overall performance (Purinton and Burke, 2019). However,, keeping students engaged can be a very challenging undertaking and can also vary depending on the mode of delivery, whether it is face-to-face or virtual (online). From my perspective as someone who delivers both face-to-face and online, I have found that the challenges involved in keeping students engaged online are much more pronounced than in a face-to-face class – a sentiment shared by many industry colleagues. One example of a key challenge is getting students to put their cameras on to ensure you have their attention and get them to be more interactive with the sessions. This is an on-going battle in virtual classrooms across the globe (I would imagine), particularly where there isn’t an explicit policy requirement for cameras to be turned on. On the other hand, face-to-face classes provide more opportunity for lecturers to engage students and encourage participation in group activities and classroom participation for instance. Additionally, the physical presence of their classmates create pressure of sorts, which lends itself positively to students not wanting to be left out. Ultimately, face-to-face sessions could be considered as more ‘user-friendly’ as far as the lecturer’s ability to make the session more enjoyable and engaging is concerned.

Fun as a Strategy

There are a myriad of strategies and methods of creating engagement in the classroom, one of which is the deliberate use of ‘fun’. ?And I use the term “deliberate” here because as I already noted above, ‘fun’ is not a term that is usually associated with the rigour of academic pursuits however, it is a very important element for making the teaching and learning journey for both the lecturer and students more engaging and much more productive overall. Purinton and Burke (2019) explain the importance of fun thus,

“Fun makes the classroom, and learning, enjoyable and fights distraction and ennui. As stress and anxiety causes blood flow to leave the frontal lobe of the brain (flight or fight response), enjoying oneself actually provides more blood flow in the brain for learning. An enjoyable experience can generalize to enjoying the topic, the class, or learning”

So how do we define “fun”? According to the Cambridge dictionary, fun is simply defined as “pleasure, enjoyment or entertainment”. We say things like ‘it’s all fun and games’ or ‘just for fun’ to indicate a sense of feeling of enjoyment or derive pleasure as the definition suggests. Fun is also closely associated with play and in fact, according to Eberle (2014), one of the key elements of fun is play…we play because it is fun and if play was not fun, then arguably, it is unlikely that we would invest much time in playing. In further support of this, Rucker (2017) also argues that fun is “intrinsic” to play and is a “natural by-product of play”. Of course, despite this close association, play is not the only time we have fun. For instance, recent research has shown that there is an increase in the creativity and productivity of employees in an environment they consider ‘fun’ – which has nothing to do with ‘play’ right?

Rucker (2017) suggests that fun is often equated to hedonism (the pursuit of pleasure) in academic writing so to further examine this fun/play/hedonism relationship, Babin et al (1994) examined the hedonic value versus the utilitarian value of fun, using shopping as an example i.e., shopping for fun (hedonic value) and shopping for a need such grocery shopping (utilitarian value). Their argument is that the utilitarian reasons for shopping can almost be viewed as work (a chore) while the hedonic reason for shopping is more “personal, subjective and often entails playfulness” (Babin et al, 1994). From our perspective as educators, we know the practical value of what we do (teaching) but should we not also actively focus on the hedonic aspect of the process (for both student and lecturer)? This requires the us to revisit two key areas of our classroom engagement – activities and delivery.

Tews et al (2014) define two categories associated with increased classroom engagement, namely (i) fun activities, which promote and encourage social involvement among students; and (ii) fun delivery which refers to the lecturer’s style of delivery and ability to present. By looking at the different elements of engagement – cognitive, emotional and physical - they identified a correlation between the combination of fun activities and fun delivery with the overall levels of engagement.

The Student Perspective

Getting the student perspective was important to better understand what they perceive as a fun or enjoyable session. In preparation for my presentation, I carried out a quick Slido poll with four student groups I teach, and I asked them to respond to a single question – ‘In two or three words, what makes a lecture/lesson fun for you?’ There were a total of 57 participants who responded and most of the responses fell into the following themes:

·?????? Engaging discussions/fun interactions

·?????? Jokes and humour

·?????? Real-life examples

·?????? Stories

·?????? Lecturer’s personality

The word cloud below shows the results of one of the Slido polls from one of the four groups polled. Despite the simplicity of the poll, the results can begin to give an indication of the type of feedback that can be expected from students as far as their classroom experience is concerned and provide a good starting point for improvements in classroom engagement.

Creating ‘Fun’ in the Classroom

As a lecturer, creating an enjoyable learning experience in the classroom for my students is my number one priority, but as someone who enjoys teaching, it is also important to me that I also enjoy the process otherwise a 1.5-hour lecture can seem like an eternity.

Here are a few suggestions for creating a fun classroom environment:

• Co-creation (not content): I always involve my students in my delivery from the very first session by first understanding who they are, where they come from and what they do (if they have jobs etc) and then telling them about myself and what experience I bring to their learning journey. This initial understanding lays a foundation for both lecturers and students to collaborate in creating the optimum environment for effective learning by understanding each other as well as agreeing to the ‘rules of engagement’.
• Student-centred but tutor-led: Our approach should always be ‘about the student’ – they are the priority. Student-centred learning is critical to a successful and effective learning journey however, the tutor should always take responsibility for leading and facilitating the class. For example, allowing students to have expansive discussions or debates on a relevant topic that may have emerged during the class but ensuring the discussion is monitored for time, so it doesn’t go on for too long, and also for interaction so students don’t become aggressive, offensive or inappropriate.
• New information (not on your slides): This can be an interesting fact about the topic being covered, a recent news item or an interesting case study they can relate to. If you have international students, they could be encouraged to share information about the topic relating to their countries of origin for example.
• Storytelling (related and relevant): A case study does not always have to be a pdf document about some corporate organisation, it can be a personal story from the tutor or the students which relates to the topic of discussion and provides a practical view or application of the topic being discussed.
• Use of Humour: The use of humour is effective but can be a ‘hit and miss’. For example, a lecturer using British humour in a class full of non-British students may struggle to get the desired impact. This highlights the importance of the ‘getting to know you’ period at the start of the module which would help the lecturer to understand better their audience. In an article published in the Journal of Experimental Education, Ziv (1988) found that the use of humour led to students scoring higher grades in their summative assessments.
• Use of digital tools (where relevant): This can bring additional variety to the session e.g. videos, short TED talks, Slido, Padlet, Mentimeter etc.

Conclusion

In the final analysis, the reality is there is no universally agreed definition of what is fun. In other words, what may be fun for me may not necessarily be fun for you, and therefore, the focus should be on how we can create the most engaging learning environment for our students. And of course, students themselves have varying thoughts on what they would consider a ‘fun’ or enjoyable lecture. To that extent and in the context of the lecturer-student classroom relationship, we can say that a ‘fun learning environment’ is equal to the ‘optimum learning environment’ as defined by the lecturer and students. For any lecturer who truly enjoys the process of imparting knowledge and contributing to our students’ future successes, the ultimate acknowledgment is hearing or reading positive feedback from them about the impact our teaching has had on them – it is a beautiful feeling of accomplishment! It also makes up for those long hours spent marking so many scripts (just a little anyway).

Kevin Korgba is Head of Team (Business) at QA Higher Education London campus and Business Lecturer on the QAHE/London Metropolitan University partnership

References

Babin, B.J., Darden, W.R. and Griffin, M. (1994) Work and/or Fun: Measuring Hedonic and Utilitarian Shopping Value,?Journal of Consumer Research, Volume 20, Issue 4, March 1994, Pages 644–656,?https://doi.org/10.1086/209376

Eberle, S. G. (2014). The elements of play: Toward a philosophy and definition of play. American Journal of Play, 6(2), 214–233.

Privette, G. (1983). Peak experience, peak performance, and flow: A comparative analysis of positive human experiences. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45(6), 1361-1368. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.45.6.1361

R. Fluegge-Woolf, E. (2014), "Play hard, work hard: Fun at work and job performance", Management Research Review, Vol. 37 No. 8, pp. 682-705. https://doi.org/10.1108/MRR-11-2012-0252

Purinton, E. and Berke, M. (2019). Student Engagement and Fun: Evidence from the Field. Business Education Innovation Journal, 11(2)

Rucker, M. (2017). What is Fun Anyway? [online] Available at: https://michaelrucker.com/having-fun/what-is-fun/ [Accessed on 30 August 2024]

Ziv, A. (1988). Teaching and Learning with Humor: Experiment and Replication. The Journal of Experimental Education, 57(1), 5–15. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20151750