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.