Micro Teaching

MICRO TEACHING….. 

The art of teaching does not merely involve a simple transfer of knowledge from one to other. Instead, it is a complex process that facilitates and influences the process of learning. Quality of a teacher is estimated on how much the students understand from his/her teaching. The classrooms cannot be used as a learning platform for acquiring primary teaching skills. The pedagogic skill for teaching can be acquired only through more structured and cheaper faculty training techniques. With the introduction of micro teaching about five decades ago, the lacunae of scientifically proven or effective methods to be followed in teacher training programs has been overcome.

Teaching - Meaning

• Teaching is the stimulation, guidance, direction and encouragement of learning.
• Teaching is the communication between two or more persons, who influence each other by their ideas and learn something in the process of interaction.
• Teaching is to fill the minds of the learner by information and knowledge of facts for future use.
• Teaching is the process in which learner, teacher and other variables are organized in a systematic way to attain some pre-determined goals.
• Teaching is to cause the child to learn and acquire the desired knowledge, skills and also desired ways of living in the society.
• Teaching is the stimulation, guidance, direction and encouragement of learning.

Teaching is to cause the child to learn and acquire the desired knowledge, skills and also desired ways of living in the society.

Teaching : Definition

“Teaching is an intimate contact between a more mature personality and less mature one which is designed to further the education of the latter.” - (H.C. Morrison, 1934)

"Teaching means many different things, that teaching act varies from person to person and from situation to situation. " -            (Bar, 1961)

"The behaviour or activities of persons as they go about doing whatever is required of teachers, particularly those activities which are concerned with the guidance or direction of learning of others." - (Ryan, 1965)

What is a teaching skill ?

·   A teaching skill is that behaviour of the teacher which facilitates pupils’ learning directly or indirectly.

·      A teaching skill includes all arts and behaviour of the teacher which maximizes pupils’ learning.

·     A teaching skill is that art of the teacher which makes communication between the teacher and pupils sufficiently

Definition      

“Micro teaching is a scaled down teaching encounter in class size and time”                                                                                                   - D.W.Allen(1966)

Micro teaching is a scaled down teaching encounter in which a teacher teaches a small unit to a group of five pupils for a small period of 5 to 20 minutes.                                                                             - L.C. Singh (1977)

              Micro teaching is a teacher training technique for learning teaching skills. It employs real teaching situation for developing skills and helps to get deeper knowledge regarding the art of teaching. This Stanford technique involved the steps of “plan, teach, observe, re-plan, re-teach and re-observe” and has evolved as the core component in 91% of on-campus clinical teaching development programs, with the significant reduction in the teaching complexities with respect to number of students in a class, scope of content, and timeframe, etc. Most of the pre-service teacher education programs widely use micro teaching, and it is a proven method to attain gross improvement in the instructional experiences. Effective student teaching should be the prime quality of a teacher. As an innovative method of equipping teachers to be effective, skills and practices of micro teaching have been implemented.

Attempts have been made to list teaching skills. Allen and Ryan listed the following teaching skills at Stanford University in the U.S.A.

1.         Stimulus Variation

2.         Set induction

3.         Closure

4.         Teacher silence and non-verbal cues

5.         Reinforcing pupil participation

6.         Fluency in questioning

7.         Probing questioning

8.         Use of higher questions

9.         Divergent questions

10.      Recognizing and attending behaviour

11.      Illustrating and use of examples

12.      Lecturing

13.      Planned repetition

14.      Completeness of communication

Micro teaching, a teacher training technique currently practiced worldwide, provides teachers an opportunity to perk up their teaching skills by improving the various simple tasks called teaching skills. With the proven success among the novice and seniors, micro teaching helps to promote real-time teaching experiences. The core skills of micro teaching such as presentation and reinforcement skills help the novice teachers to learn the art of teaching at ease and to the maximum extent.

          Micro teaching can be practiced with a very small lesson or a single concept and a less number of students. It scales down the complexities of real teaching, as immediate feedback can be sought after each practice session. The modern-day multimedia equipment such as audio–video recording devices have a key role in the learning process.

Observing a fellow teacher and using a trial-and-error in own teaching sessions are very common way of self-training. But, both of them have their own demerits. On the other hand, micro teaching helps in eliminating errors and builds stronger teaching skills for the beginners and senior teachers. Micro teaching increases the self-confidence, improves the in-class teaching performances, and develops the classroom management skills.

 Characteristic of Micro teaching

              •     Micro teaching is a highly individualized training device

              •     Micro teaching is an experiment in the field of teacher   education which has been incorporated in the practice teaching schedule

              •     It is a student teaching skill training technique and not a teaching technique or method

              •     Micro teaching is micro in the sense that it scale down the complexities of real teaching

     •    Practicing one skill at a time

     •    Reducing the class size to 5 – 10 pupil

     •    Reducing the duration of lesson to 5 – 10 minutes

     •   Limiting the content to a single concept

     •       immediate feedback helps in improving, fixing and motivating learning

     •       The student  are providing immediate feedback in terms of peer group feedback, tape recorded/CCT

Steps and requirements of micro teaching

Knowledge acquisition, skill acquisition, and transfer are the three different phases of micro teaching. May phases including micro teaching, Knowledge acquisition phase is the preparatory, pre -active phase, in which the teacher gets trained on the skills and components of teaching through lectures, discussion, illustration, and demonstration of the skill by the experts. In the interactive, skill acquisition phase, the teacher plans a micro-lesson for practicing the demonstrated skills. The colleagues and peers can act as constructive evaluates which also enable them to modify their own teaching-earning practices. The teacher can reinforce behaviors and skills that are necessary and extinguish that are not needed. Ultimately, they can integrate and transfer this learned skills from simulated teaching situation to real class room teaching.  There are  10 key steps including  micro teaching activity.

Core Teaching Skills

It is not possible to train all the pupil teachers in all these skills in any training programme because of the constraints of time and funds. Therefore a set of teaching skills which cuts across the subject areas has been identified. They have been found very useful for every teacher. The set of these skills are known as CORE TEACHING SKILLS

Core Teaching Skills are:

          1.     Skill of Probing Questions

          2.     Skill of Explaining

          3.     Skill of Illustrating With Examples

          4.     Skill of Stimulus Variation

     5.     Skill of Reinforcement

     6.     Skill of Classroom Management

     7.     Skill of Using Blackboard

     8.    Skill of Introducing a lesson

Core skills applicable in micro teaching

The core techniques involved with micro teaching are based on the fact that teaching can be analyzed and estimated using various simple teaching tasks/skills, which are a set of behavior or acts of the teacher that facilitates learning (directly or indirectly). During the origin of micro teaching, almost 20 teaching skills have been identified. But, it has now increased up to 37 or even more. Listed below are some of the important teaching skills.

 Lesson planning

It involves the preparation of a micro-lesson which should be organized in a logical sequence. The content should be concise, appropriate, relevant, and could cover the specified duration

Presentation and explanation

This involves the skills required to explain with clarity and proper understanding of the concepts. The components include teacher enthusiasm, creating readiness by a beginning statement or topic sentence, effective explanation, planned repetition, and concluding statements or key messages with summary of explanation.

Illustrating with examples

The teacher trainee should be able to rightly explain the concept by simple, relevant, and interesting examples to increase learners’ understanding.

Reinforcement

This skill is meant for increasing the participation of the learners in the development of teaching process. Use of positive verbal and non-verbal cues would be key component for this skill.

Stimulus variation

Securing and sustaining the attention of the learner is imperative for a good teacher. The effective components of the skill are gestures, change in speech pattern, and change in interaction style.

Probing questions

It is important to allow and encourage the fellow trainees to ask structured questions and clarify doubts. Redirection, refocusing, and increasing critical awareness are significant components of this skill.

Classroom management

Providing proper instructions, restricting inappropriate behavior, and calling the learners by name are essentials of this skill.

Using audiovisual aids

The increased awareness of the audiovisual aids is important for this skill. Adequate spacing, distinct size, proper spacing between words and lines, and use of relevant words or phrases are the key components for this skill.