For example, one year we talked about how if Batman were a real person, he would be in trouble chronic disease wise. He\u2019s up all night and has a stressful job. Plus, there are no parks in Gotham city so there are environmental factors to consider.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
The initial idea to use comics to teach health at WOU was the brainchild of Professor Eric Bruce, who joins in for a discussion around the benefits of using comics in the classroom, his experiences at Comic-Con, and thoughts on future directions of comics research.<\/p>\n
When did you think to use comics in your teaching? How did students react?<\/h2>\n
Eric Bruce:<\/em><\/strong> Back in 2008, I taught Motor Learning for one term and I started feeling that I needed to better connect with the students. I\u2019d been hiding the whole nerd\/geek thing, but I thought, I\u2019m going to go for it.<\/p>\n I used a few different superheroes and horror movies throughout the term to illustrate various health concepts. At first, the students were a little like \u201cwhoa, this is different,\u201d but then they were getting it and understanding the material better. I also think I\u2019ve become more comfortable in the classroom when I\u2019m able to link the health concepts to the characters and the students seem more comfortable too.<\/p>\n Yeah, so growing up and enjoying movies and action movies and then building Legos and playing with action figures and then instead of that action figure being so and so from GI Joe, it was Superman. As I got older, I actually got to read the stories and watch the movies that I got the toys for. So it\u2019s always been a part of my life.<\/p>\n My family always encouraged me to follow your passion and people will see it \u2013 whatever you\u2019re doing in your career, people will be more likely to buy into whatever it is you\u2019re selling. And in this world where we\u2019re selling health behavior, if I\u2019m more comfortable sharing with my comics and pop culture, then I\u2019m better able to reach people.<\/p>\n In 2010, I went to San Diego comic-con and I saw a panel about Batman. I walked in to check it out and ended up talking with Dr. Travis Langley from Henderson State University, who is one of the founding members of the conference. He explained that it\u2019s a multidisciplinary conference focused on comics research and comic studies. So you have this academic conference housed inside probably the Super Bowl of comic book conventions.<\/p>\n I thought, you know, this is good and Dr. Langley said \u201cyou should send us something next year.\u201d Well I didn\u2019t. I waited until the following year, but then got accepted and went down to present on Batman and the biopsychosocial model of disease. Shawn and Janet got involved in 2014 and now we\u2019ve brought Dr. Lilo into it and she came down this year to present.<\/p>\n Yeah, so it\u2019s called the Comic Arts Conference and it runs all 4 days of Comic-Con. Comic-Con itself is huge. There are approximately 135,000 attendees, plus 15,000-20,000 workers \u2013 people that are volunteering or they have tables \u2013 inside the convention center and it also spills outside the convention center. Those 135,000 tickets usually go in 30 minutes and so you\u2019ve got some dedicated people that want to be there.<\/p>\n Obviously, we haven\u2019t had 135,000 people show up to our poster \u2013 the room couldn\u2019t hold that \u2013 but there\u2019s something for everybody. It\u2019s quite crazy. It\u2019s sensory overload.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text admin_label=”Image with Caption” module_class=”aks-mod aks-image-Ycaption aks-story-pic” _builder_version=”4.4.7″ animation_style=”fade”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text admin_label=”Story Text” module_class=”aks-mod” _builder_version=”4.4.7″]<\/p>\n This year really ended up being quite the collaborative idea. It started with me looking in one direction and then Dr. Lilo took it one way, Shawn, and Janet took it another way, and it all came back around and we agreed on one thing to focus on. The final title of our poster was \u201cNot Just Heroines vs. Villains \u2013 It\u2019s Complicated: Engaging Teens in Positive Youth Development Through Superheroes.\u201d<\/p>\n The idea is that whether someone becomes a hero or a villain depends on their back story and there are health risk behaviors where a character can go and become a villain or a hero. We looked at those health factors with different villains and then shared it as a lesson plan. The lesson plan is the \u201cso what\u201d moment that we\u2019ve done with all the projects \u2013 here\u2019s how you would use this in the classroom to teach healthier relationships, or decrease heart disease, or something like that. And that\u2019s worked pretty well. People are curious.<\/p>\n Very well. When I first started, about 20 people showed up to the poster and this year it was easily over 60. I ran out of copies of materials to hand out. So we\u2019re getting more popular. Because as the popularity of the movies and tv shows increase, more people are thinking, okay, how do I do this? How can I address this in an educational format?<\/p>\n I know that folks have poked at me to put some things down in a book, but I\u2019m not sure about that yet. I like to be involved in panels when I have the time, but I do love the poster aspect of it. Yeah, I always have an idea \u2013 there\u2019s always something that\u2019s popped up and then I\u2019ll share it with Shawn and Janet and now Dr. Lilo.<\/p>\n It\u2019s been wonderful getting lots of opinions and then also learning from them. It\u2019s been a highlight to have those conversations and then I say, okay, here\u2019s the nerd stuff to go with it.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ admin_label=”Related Posts” module_class=”aks-section aks-blog-related-section” _builder_version=”4.4.7″][et_pb_row module_class=”aks-content-container aks-content-container-row aks-row aks-blog-related-row” _builder_version=”4.4.7″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ module_class=”aks-blog-related-col” _builder_version=”4.4.7″ custom_padding=”|||” custom_padding__hover=”|||”][et_pb_code admin_label=”Related Posts (Heading)” module_class=”aks-mod aks-blog-related-head” _builder_version=”4.4.7″]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_code][et_pb_blog fullwidth=”off” posts_number=”3″ include_categories=”current” use_manual_excerpt=”off” excerpt_length=”0″ show_author=”off” show_date=”off” show_categories=”off” show_excerpt=”off” show_pagination=”off” module_class=”aks-blog-related-mod” _builder_version=”4.4.7″ header_level=”h3″][\/et_pb_blog][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ admin_label=”Blog Categories” module_class=”aks-section aks-all-cats-section” _builder_version=”4.4.7″][et_pb_row module_class=”aks-content-container aks-content-container-row aks-row aks-all-cats-row” _builder_version=”4.4.7″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.4.7″][et_pb_sidebar area=”et_pb_widget_area_4″ admin_label=”Blog Categories” module_class=”aks-mod aks-all-cats-mod” _builder_version=”4.4.7″][\/et_pb_sidebar][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ admin_label=”COE Sites Footer” module_class=”aks-full-width aks-coe-footer” _builder_version=”4.4.7″ background_color=”#1f1f1f” locked=”off” global_module=”18810″][et_pb_row column_structure=”1_4,1_4,1_4,1_4″ make_equal=”on” module_class=”aks-content-container” _builder_version=”4.4.7″][et_pb_column type=”1_4″ _builder_version=”4.4.7″][et_pb_text admin_label=”COE” _builder_version=”4.4.7″ background_layout=”dark”]<\/p>\n Richard Woodcock Education Center<\/p>\n Phone: <\/strong>(503) 838-8471<\/p>\n Email: <\/strong>education@wou.edu<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_4″ _builder_version=”4.4.7″][et_pb_divider _builder_version=”4.4.7″][\/et_pb_divider][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_4″ _builder_version=”4.4.7″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Divisions” _builder_version=”4.4.7″ background_layout=”dark”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_4″ _builder_version=”4.4.7″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Offices” _builder_version=”4.4.7″ background_layout=”dark”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" HEXS professors share their experiences using comics as a teaching tool and presenting their ideas at San Diego Comic-Con.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[64,58,53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academics","category-faculty-staff","category-hexs"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6665\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}You mentioned the whole \u201cnerd\/geek thing,\u201d does that mean you\u2019ve always liked comic books? What was it that got you interested?<\/h2>\n
How did you end up presenting this idea of using comics to promote health at Comic-Con?<\/h2>\n
Ah, okay. So you\u2019re presenting at an academic conference that\u2019s going on at Comic-Con? What\u2019s that like?<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wou.edu\/education\/files\/2020\/07\/San_Diego_Comic-Con.jpg\")
Wow, sounds intense. What was the theme or character for this year?<\/h2>\n
Your posters and ideas have been pretty well received then?<\/h2>\n
Going forward, do you have some grand plan for where you see this going?<\/h2>\n
Related<\/h2>\n
College of Education<\/a><\/h2>\n
ACADEMIC DIVISIONS<\/h3>\n
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OFFICES AND CENTERS<\/h3>\n
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