Richard Pirkle
When Richard Pirkle explains how white blood cells get from the bloodstream to an
injury, he doesn鈥檛 use diagrams and PowerPoint. Instead, he uses hand puppets, silly
voices and his body, which he flings around the room, to explain the journey.
鈥淚 do voices for things, and at some point, my hands will be in the air and I鈥檒l do puppets,鈥� the biology instructor said. 鈥淚 have jokes planned into the presentations. There鈥檚 no reason not to. I treat my classes like a standup routine.
鈥淓very time I do something silly, they like it better. The more you make yourself look like a regular person and not the stodgy professor they see in movies, the more you can get them to engage.鈥�
Silly voices and jokes are just part of Pirkle鈥檚 arsenal of teaching methods for his anatomy and physiology classes.
Twitter is one of his signature tools, because students use it more than Facebook and no one asks questions in a 250-person lecture hall. His feed includes updates about his coffee intake, but mostly it is conversations with his current and former students: advice, encouragement and, of course, more jokes.
鈥淭hey鈥檙e going to tweet their feelings at that moment; it鈥檚 word vomit. So if someone says, 鈥業f I study A&P for one more hour I鈥檓 going to go crazy,鈥� I can say, 鈥楾ake a break, go get a donut. Bring me one.鈥� I鈥檝e actually gotten donuts that way,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a good way to be a positive influence in their lives.
鈥淭hey think there鈥檚 supposed to be this wall between them and their professors. I think it鈥檚 better to break down that wall. I think a lot of times I get better work out of them because they know I鈥檓 trying to help them.鈥�
