Abstract
A CASE-STUDY ON HUMOR-BASED CONTENT IN SCIENCE LESSON
This study is a case-study in which a humor based content of the "Environment and Human" unit belonging to the 7th grade science course is examined from the point of view of students. The participants of this study are 30 students in the class where humor based contents are applied. Before the content was developed, a preliminary study was carried out aiming to reveal the thoughts of humorous teaching with the 3 Science Teaching teachers who rarely use humorous content in their lessons. Pre-study was conducted with semi-structured interview forms. The data obtained in these interviews were transferred to the computer environment and codes, categories and themes were created. These are interpreted and developed for the content to be developed. At the next stage, the literature was searched and the final form was given using the findings obtained in the preliminary study. This content was applied by the first researcher for a total of 16 lesson hours, 4 lessons per week, 7th grade chosen by typical case sampling method. After the completion of the training, 10 students were selected from the upper, middle and lower achievement levels of the class in which the content was applied and face-to-face interviews were conducted with these students in semi-structured interview forms. The data obtained from the interviews were transferred to the computer environment and codes, categories and themes were created on these data. These codes are based on categories and themes and are interpreted in relation to the findings of the preliminary teacher interviews. According to the results of the research, the students find humorous talk, extraordinary videos, caricatures and humorous cases fun. Humor based course content and activities have a positive impact on motivation, attitude and achievement for students. For some successful students, however, the impact of course content on achievement and attitude is rather limited. Teachers have emphasized that humorous activities make class management difficult and facilitate deviation from the subject. According to the students, humorous activities provide a healthy process and active participation of the lesson. In addition, it was stated that the teachers' personal characteristics are important for the humor-based course. It has also been observed that cartoons, animation and test methods / techniques are often used in humor-based lessons.
Keywords
Humor, science curriculum, case-study.