Microteaching
Microteaching is a teacher training technique.
It is used to train teachers/student teachers on acquiring the teaching skills
or enhancing competency on teaching skills. It is a scaled-down version of real
teaching. It cut shorts content, size, skills and time of formal classes. The
microteaching helps to minimize the complexities of normal teaching. The student teachers are required to teach a single
concept using specified teaching skills to a small number of students in a
short duration of time.
Micro-teaching session provides feedback to teacher trainees
for the modification of the teaching behaviours. It gives feedback on the performance
of student teachers on the skill practice. It is an extremely personalized coaching
technique for teachers. It is used not in regular classroom as a teaching
strategy, but only as a teacher training device.
Definitions
Micro teaching is defined in different perspectives. Some
of them are given under;
DW Allen (1966)
defined, “Microteaching as a scale down teaching encounter in class size and
period.” (DW Allen of Stanford University is considered as the propagator of
the micro teaching.)
Clift (1976)
defined the microteaching thus: “Microteaching as a teacher training procedure,
which reduces the teaching situation to simpler and more controlled encounter
achieved by limiting the practice to a specific skill and reducing teaching
time and class size.”
B.K. Passi (1976)
defined microteaching “as a training technique, which requires student teachers
to teach a single concept using specified teaching skill to a smaller number of
pupils in a short duration of time.” Passi is the Indian educationist who
adapted microteaching process to accommodate to the Indian situation.
Allen and Eve
(1968) defined, “Microteaching as a system of controlled practice that makes it
possible to concentrates on specified teaching behaviour and to practice
teaching under controlled conditions.”
Mc. Knight (1971), “Microteaching is a scaled-down teaching encounter designed
to develop new skills and refine old ones”
Flanders, Ned. A. (1970) defined like
this- “Microteaching program is organized to expose the
trainees to an organized curriculum of miniature teaching encounters, moving
from the less complex to the more complex.”
Characteristics of Microteaching
·
Micro
teaching is normally practiced in peer groups.
·
It
reduces strength or size of the class to 5 to 10 numbers
·
It
reduces class duration to 4 to 8 minutes.
·
It
reduces the dimensions/length of the topic to teach.
·
It
uses one skill only to practice at a time.
·
Trainee
will get immediate feedback on her/his skill practice
·
Trainee
is replanning and practicing the skill again
·
The
skill practice continuous till mastery on skill is being achieved
·
After
acquisition of skills, trainee can transfer the skills into the regular classes
There are three
faces in Micro-Teaching process. They are;
Phase I: Planning
phase or information Acquisition Phase
In this part, the trainee acquires information
and knowledge regarding the skill and its role in teaching. Trainee can also observe
the demonstration lessons and also the mode of presentation of the skills.
Teacher trainee plans to practice a skill based on the acquired information.
This plan is known as Plan for Practicing Micro teaching skill or micro
teaching lesson plan.
Phase II: Skill acquisition
Phase (Interactive phase)
This
is the practice session of the microteaching programme. In this part, the
teacher trainee prepares a microteaching lesson, practices the skill before the
peer group and carries out the microteaching cycle (feedback and replan). One
should practice the skill till mastery on the skill is to be achieved.
Phase III: Skill
Transfer Phase (Post-active phase)
After
achieving the mastery of the teaching skill, the teacher-trainees can take the
acquired skills to actual classrooms in between the actual class and micro
teaching, there is a link practice session also. Link practice means practicing
three or four skills together to acquire perfection on teaching behaviour.
Micro teaching
Cycle
Micro teaching has
certain specific sessions and trainee should be practiced these sessions till
mastery on the skill is being achieved. The sessions are Planning session
– Practicing/teaching session – Feedback Session – replan
session – reteach/ re-practice session and refeed back session.
These sessions are to be continued in cyclic form. This can be Illustrated in a
circle format. This is called microteaching cycle.
Figure.1. Microteaching
Cycle: Source: https://gyanshalatips.in
Teaching Skills
There
are different teaching skills. It is saying that there are 8 to 13 core
teaching skills. The NCERT speaks of 83 skills for teaching.
Some
skills are specific for some regions. For example, skill of using black board
is specifically necessary for Indian situation. But may not be essential for US
or Finland.
Here
listed certain teaching skills.
1. 1.
skill
of Planning a Lesson
2. 2.
skill
of Introducing a lesson or Set Induction
- Skill of Black Board Writing
- Skill of Asking Probing Questions
- Skill of Asking evaluating Questions (these
two skills (4&5) can be together called Skill of Asking Questions)
- Skill of Stimulus Variation
- Skill of Explaining
- Skills
of Illustrating with Examples
- Skill of Narration
- Skill of Voice modulation
- Skill of reinforcement
- Skill of using Teaching -Learning aids
- Skill of using technological devices
- Skill of achieving closure
Each
skill is having certain subskills. Acquisition of the subskills is the means
for acquiring a teaching skill. Some of the subskills of the selected teaching
skills are explained below. The list of subskills given here is not complete.
We can add some more in relation to the contexts of teaching. In a practice
session, a trainee need not use all subskill. One can choose some skills which
are relevant to the topic.
Skill of Planning a Lesson
a.
Selection
of topic
b.
Selection
of appropriate method/methods
c.
Appropriateness
of sequencing teaching tasks
d.
Appropriateness
teaching/learning aids
e.
Perfection
of plan
f.
Communicability
of the lesson plan
Skill of Introducing a Lesson (set induction)
This is the start of the formal
transaction of a class. Major subskills are;
Skill of Black Board
Writing
a. a. Teacher position while using BB
b. b. Legibility
c. c. Neatness and clarity
d. d. Five Ss of letters (size, shape, slant, space and
stroke)
e. e. Brevity
f. f. Organization of work
g. g. Way of erasing the written content
h. h. Perfection of Black Board Summery
i. i. Repeating & rephrasing student
responses on BB
j. j. Writing pupil answers on BB
a. a.
Framing
the question
b. b.
Delivery/distribution
of questions
c. c. .Keeping
silence
d. d. Making
eye contact
e. e.
Focusing
and refocusing
f. f.
Seeking
further information
g.
g. Asking
supportive sub questions
h.
h. Giving
reinforcements
i.
The
skill of stimulus variation can be defined as a careful change in the
attention-drawing behaviours of the teacher in order to obtain and assure pupil’s
attention towards the lesson. In a teaching session, teacher has to manage
various types of actions. This includes three styles of interaction among
pupils and teacher; they are (a) Teacher-pupil interactions or (b) teacher –
student group interaction (c) pupil-pupil interaction. The skill of stimulus
variation have to perform with all these three interactions.
a.
Voice/sound modulation
b. Change in speech pattern
c.
Gestures
d. Pausing
e.
Teacher movements
f.
Oral verbal switching
g.
Verbal and nonverbal cues
h.
Facial variation
i.
Appropriate actions for delivery of content
j.
Teacher interactions
a. a. Motivating learners to the content
b. b. Beginning statement (Beginning
statements are the introductory statements made before an explanation for
operating mental readiness on the part of pupils to listen to what is going to
be explained)
Taking
examples in the context of explaining a fact or concept is an important task in
teaching. Teacher should have sufficient examples to connect with the teaching
topic. The major components of this skill are;
a.
Formulating
simple examples
b.
Formulating
examples relevant to the rule or concept
c.
Formulating
interesting examples
d.
Using
appropriate media
e.
Using
examples relevantly
f.
Connecting examples with the core content
a.
Use of appropriate sound
b.
Variating the sounds according to the situation
c.
Simulating the sound
d.
Increasing or decreasing the sound
e.
Tone of sound
f.
Change in tone
Skill of Reinforcement
Reinforcement can
be positive or negative. Positive reinforcements also called positive strokes.
While teacher uses more and more positive
reinforcements and decreasing the use of negative reinforcements, the pupils’
participation in the class is maximized. The components are;
a. a. Positive comments
b. b. verbal reinforcement
c. c. teacher’s
acceptance of students’ ideas, feeling and so on.
d. d. Addressing
student responses
e. e. making
encouraging remarks (like ‘good’, ‘right’, ‘yes’, ‘carry on’. etc.)
f. f. Using extra verbal cues or expressions
(like ‘hmm-hmm’, ul-uh’, yaa, no no, to be more clear, ohhh.. wonderful etc.)
g. g. Positive non-verbal reinforcement (like
nodding of head, smiling, moving towards the responding pupil)
h. h. Accepting and repeating students’
responses
Skill of Using
Teaching -Learning aids
a. a. Appropriateness of the aids
b. b. Quality and
relevance
c. c. Proper orientation
to the aid
d. d. Connecting the aid
to the teaching content
e. e. Explanation based
on the aid
f. f. Assuring pupil
participation in exploring the aid
Conclusion
Microteaching is a widely
using training technique in the field of teacher education programmes. However,
it has many demerits. MT is considering teaching not as a complex whole but as
different components. Teaching is performing not in a segment of skills but in
total. Practice of skill may not reflect in totality of teaching. Teaching competency
doesn’t mean competency in skills. And teaching skills are not water tight
compartments to practice them in separate. Another criticism is that the
process of MT is time consuming. One has to spend long time in practicing the
skills one by one. Hence it become a dull process to carry on.
It has many advantages
also. During the pre-service programmes, a student teacher get primary
awareness and practice on skills through the process of MT. Practice of MT
skills will give confidence to the trainee to face the regular formal classes. It
helps acquiring claroom management.
For effective practice
of MT, one should acquire awareness on MT, its processes, prepare a plan on selected
skill, get feedback and continue the practicing processes.
