Microteaching: Definition, skills and subskills

 

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

 Phases of Microteaching

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

3. Skill of Black Board Writing
4. Skill of Asking Probing Questions
5. Skill of Asking evaluating Questions (these two skills (4&5) can be together called Skill of Asking Questions)
6. Skill of Stimulus Variation
7. Skill of Explaining
8. Skills of Illustrating with Examples
9. Skill of Narration
10. Skill of Voice modulation
11. Skill of reinforcement
12. Skill of using Teaching -Learning aids
13. Skill of using technological devices
14. Skill of achieving closure

 Subskills or Component Skills of Teaching Skills

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;

a.     Creativity of introduction
b.     Appropriateness with the topic
c.     Rapport with the students
d.     Connectivity with the development of topic
e.     Seeking previous knowledge
f.      Way of asking introductory questions
g.     Way of accepting student responses
h.     Interactives

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

 Skill of Asking Questions (probing questions/ evaluating questions)

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.       Skill of Stimulus Variation

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  

 Skill of Explaining

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)

c.    c.     Siting with examples
d.     Simplicity of language
e.     Using appropriate gestures and interactions
f.      Use of supporting aids
g.     Use of supportive questions
h.     Assuring pupil participations
i.      Concluding the explanation

 Skill of Illustrating with Examples

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

 Skill of Voice modulation

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.