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Show page 6 , Spring 2004 players were playing simultaneously. Yet this was not the end of Klinger's creativity in the classroom. He dressed up like each of the artists whose music was playing on the CD players. Dressed like Eminem, he danced on stage to one of the rapper's controversial songs. Halfway through the song, Klinger went behind the white board and switched outfits. This time he came out dressed like former lead singer of Guns and Roses, Axl Rose, and sang along with one of the band's popular songs. Needless to say, the class was impressed and even applauded the lecture when it was over. While Klinger was playing dress-up with his communication students, on the other side of campus, in the HPER building, health education students were having some fun of their own. Graduate student Shari Willis was finding creative ways to present her human sexuality class with the required information. On any given day, Willis' class has an average of thirty students in attendance. With a topic like human sexuality, college students have an understandable curiosity for the course's material. On a typical day, Willis begins her classes with a five or ten minute critical thinking exercise. These exercises encourage students to think and focus by coupling real-life situations with "what would you do?" scenarios. An exercise science major, junior Kristy Bemis, said that no two days are exactly alike in Willis' class. Bemis remembers one of Willis' creative exercises, "she gave us a scenario in which one or more of the people involved did something that could be considered morally wrong or unethical. We had to decide which of the people in the story was most at fault, or was most wrong, and why. It was very interesting and made me think." Willis also incorporated her creativity in selecting guest speakers. She invited a member of the Salt Lake City sheriff's department to talk to the class about abuse. "I called the sheriff's department to get some figures about a particular subject, and the person on the phone said they could just come down and speak to the class. The class learned a lot from him. So many people in our community have no ideas what the actual facts and statistics are." Variation in presenting course material is always a creative way to spice up the curriculum. Willis always found interesting visual aids to accompany her lectures. Some of the tools she used were pictures of affected body parts of people with certain sexually transmitted diseases, commanding immediate class attention. She also gave her students the option to either take tests or write reaction papers about the material from class. "In sexuality, your opinion really matters. It is your morals that determine how you feel about sexual subjects. I want my students to think for themselves, and then explain why they think the way they do." Willis often has the class engage in open discussions of topics such as whether or not oral sex is considered to be sex. It is discussions like these that keep the class creative and keep the students' attention. In addition, Willis has shown videos about female circumcisions in Africa, people addicted to pornography, and a CNN series, "Sex Stories." The fact that she takes time to record and bring in these excerpts makes a difference to her students. "It is so much better to actually see interesting videos and listen to her strange little facts than sitting in a class taking notes on something that we can read for ourselves out of the book," commented Jessica Sperry, another of Willis' students. Whether a professor performs for his class as a rapper, or a graduate instructor letting her students talk about sex, it's obvious that creativity exists on our campus. At the U many professors have a unique way of expressing themselves in their classrooms. Creativity can be difficult to teach, but faculty can use their creativity to make learning fun. "Builders of Babylon" S.L. Margolies (1937). Courtesy Mary Francey at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts |
