Microteaching: First Chapter PDF

First Chapter Microteaching What's micro teaching? Micro-teaching has been defined in a number of ways. Some selected definitions are given below:  It is a scaled down teaching encounter in class size and class time.  It is defin...

First Chapter Microteaching What's micro teaching? Micro-teaching has been defined in a number of ways. Some selected definitions are given below:  It is a scaled down teaching encounter in class size and class time.  It is defined as a system of controlled practice that makes it possible to concentrate on specified teaching behavior and to practise teaching under controlled conditions.  It is a teacher education technique which allows teachers to apply clearly defined teaching skills to carefully prepared lessons in a planned series of 5-10 minutes encounter with a small group of real students, often with an opportunity to observe the result on video-tape.  It 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 5-20 minutes. Such a situation offers a helpful setting for an experienced or inexperienced teacher to acquire new teaching skills and to refine old ones. Microteaching is an excellent way to build up skills and confidence, to experience a range of lecturing/tutoring styles and to learn and practice giving constructive feedback. Microteaching gives instructors an opportunity to safely put themselves “under the microscope” of a small group audience, but also to observe and comment on other people's performances. As a tool for teacher preparation, microteaching trains teaching behaviors and skills in small group settings aided by video-recordings. In a protected environment of friends and colleagues, teachers can try out a short piece of what they usually do with their students, and receive a well-intended collegial feedback. A microteaching session is a chance to adopt new teaching and learning strategies and, through assuming the student role, to get an insight into students' needs and expectations. It is a good time to learn from others and enrich one's own repertoire of teaching methods. 1  A microteaching session is much more comfortable than real classroom situations, because it eliminates pressure resulting from the length of the lecture, the scope and content of the matter to be conveyed, and the need to face large numbers of students, some of whom may be inattentive or even hostile. Another advantage of microteaching is that it provides skilled supervisors who can give support, lead the session in a proper direction and share some insights from the pedagogic sciences. Microteaching is so called since it is analogous to putting the teacher under a microscope so to say while he is teaching so that all faults in teaching methodology are brought into perspective for the observers to give a constructive feedback. It eliminates some of the complexities of learning to teach in the classroom situation such as the pressure of length of the lecture, the scope and content of the matter to be conveyed, the need to teach for a relatively long duration of time (usually an hour) and the need to face large numbers of students, some of whom are hostile temperamentally. Microteaching also provides skilled supervision with an opportunity to get a constructive feedback. To go back to the analogy of the swimmer, while classroom teaching is like learning to swim at the deeper end of the pool, microteaching is an opportunity to practice at the shallower and less risky side. Why micro teach? Microteaching is organized practice teaching. The goal is to give instructors confidence, support, and feedback by letting them try out among friends and colleagues a short slice of what they plan to do with their students. Ideally, microteaching sessions take place before the first day of class, and are videotaped for review individually with an experienced teaching consultant. Microteaching is a quick, efficient, proven, and fun way to help teachers get off to a strong start. Getting in front of students is a trying experience for a budding teacher. One may earnestly try to prepare him or herself: read books about teaching methods attend lectures and take courses on didactics. Yet, in theory everything seems much simpler than in practice. The complexity of a teaching situation can be overwhelming. To deal effectively with it, teachers must not only have a good knowledge of the 2 subject in hand, but also some communication skills such as ability to observe, supervise, lead a discussion and pose questions. Furthermore, a teacher should be aware of how students perceive him or her. This perception is sometimes quite different from the teacher's self-image. It is difficult to self- assess one‟s own abilities and we benefit from colleagues‟ feed- back to recognize our strength and identify areas for possible improvement. Evaluation of teaching by students is becoming a common practice, and a constructive feedback could be an effective way to improve one's rating as a teacher. Even the experienced educators may sometimes reflect about strengths and weaknesses of their teaching style. There are two purposes of Microteaching: (a) for student- teachers to develop teaching skills under controlled conditions without risking the learning of the pupils, and (b) for experienced teachers to examine and refine their techniques. Objectives of micro- teaching  To enable teacher trainees to learn and assimilate new teaching skills under controlled conditions.  To enable teacher trainees to master a number of teaching skills.  To enable teacher trainees to gain confidence in teaching. How to micro-teach? As many as six teachers from the same or similar courses can participate in a single microteaching session. Course heads, a few experienced instructors, are usually invited to serve as facilitators. While one person takes his or her turn as teacher, everyone else plays the roles of students. It is the job of these pretend pupils to ask and answer questions realistically. It is the job of the pretend teacher to involve his or her "class" actively in this way.Such a scenario typically runs for five to ten minutes. When finished, the person conducting the class has a moment or two to react to his or her own teaching. Then everyone else joins in to discuss what they saw that they especially liked. Finally, the group may mention just a few things that the practice teacher might try doing differently in the future.Like all Bok Center tapes, videos of these sessions are for the benefit of those taped and will not be seen by anyone 3 else without the explicit permission of the practice teacher. Session tapes can even be erased immediately if the practice teacher wishes. Nearly everyone, however, finds it extremely helpful to make an appointment to view and discuss their tape together with a Bok Center consultant. What to prepare? Most course heads provide micro-teachers with scenarios to prepare in advance. If not, think of a few minutes of material that you especially would like to make sure your students understand by the end of your next class. As always, you should not only plan out how to treat the subject matter, but also give some thought to how you are going to present yourself, manage the class, and involve the students. There are, of course, many different ways of teaching a given lesson well. That is why participants find that, along with what they learn from their own experience practice teaching, they can also pick up many helpful ideas from observing fellow micro-teachers Historic context The history of microteaching goes back to the early and mid 1960's, when Dwight Allen and his colleagues from the Stanford University developed a training program aimed to improve verbal and nonverbal aspects of teacher's speech and general performance. The Stanford model consisted of a three-step (teach, review and reflect, re- teach) approach using actual students as an authentic audience. The model was first applied to teaching science, but later it was introduced to language teaching. A very similar model called Instructional Skills Workshop (ISW) was developed in Canada during the early 1970's as a training support program for college and institute faculty. Both models were designed to enhance teaching and promote open collegial discussion about teaching performance. Stanford University developed Microteaching as a part of an experimental program. It was viewed as feasible in making student- teachers aware of the realities of teaching. It also served as a measurable tool in identifying teaching skills prior to actual teaching Characteristics of Microteaching  Microteaching is a highly individualized training device 4   Microteaching 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  Microteaching 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/CCTV  Microteaching advocates the choice and practice of one skill at a time Phases of Micro teaching According to J.C. Clift and others, micro-teaching procedure has three phases:  Knowledge acquisition phase: (Pre-Active Phase) In this phase, the student teacher attempt to acquire knowledge about the skill- it‟s rational, its role in class room and its component behaviours. For this he reads relevant literature. He also observes demonstration lesson-mode of presentation of the skill. The student teacher gets theoretical as well as practical knowledge of the skill. It includes the activities such as; Ø Provide knowledge about teaching skills. Ø Observe the demonstration of teaching skill. Ø Analyze and discuss the demonstration of the teaching skill.  Skill acquisition phase: (Inter-active Phase) On the basis of the model presented to the student-teacher, he prepares a micro-lesson and practices the skill and carries 5  out the micro-teaching cycle. There are two components of this phase: a) feedback b) micro-teaching settings. Micro-teaching settings include conditions like the size of the micro- class, duration of the micro-lesson, supervisor, types of students etc. It includes the activities such as; Ø Planning and preparation of micro lesson for a skill. Ø Practicing the skill. Ø Evaluation of the practiced skill (Feedback). Ø Re-plan, Re-teach and re-feedback till the desired level of skill is achieved. *Transfer phase: (Post –Active Phase) Here the student-teacher integrates the different skills. In place of artificial situation, he teaches in the real classroom and tries to integrate all the skills. Giving opportunity to use the mastered skill in normal class room teaching. Ø Integrate the different skill practiced Link Practice (Integration of Teaching Skills) when mastery has been attained in various skills, the teacher trainee is allowed to teach the skills together. This separate training programme to integrate various isolated skills is known as „Link Practice’ * It helps the trainee to transfer effectively all the skills learnt in the micro teaching sessions. * It helps to bridge the gap between training in isolated teaching skills and the real teaching situation faced by a student teacher. *Link practice or integration of skills can be done in two ways; 6 *Integration in parts3 or 4 teaching skills are integrated and transferred them into a lesson of 15-20 minutes duration. And again 3 or 4 skills are integrated and are transferred all the skills to one lesson. *Integration as a whole Student teacher integrates all the individual teaching skills by taking them as a whole and transferred them into a real teaching situation. Steps of Micro-teaching *The Micro-teaching programme involves the following steps: Step I Particular skill to be practiced is explained to the teacher trainees in terms of the purpose and components of the skill with suitable examples. Step II The teacher trainer gives the demonstration of the skill in Micro-teaching in simulated conditions to the teacher trainees. Step III The teacher trainee plans a short lesson plan on the basis of the demonstrated skill for his/her practice. Step IV The teacher trainee teaches the lesson to a small group of pupils. His lesson is supervised by the supervisor and peers. Step V On the basis of the observation of a lesson, the supervisor gives feedback to the teacher trainee. The supervisor reinforces the instances of effective use of the skill and draws attention of the teacher trainee to the points where he could not do well. Step VI In the light of the feed-back given by the supervisor, the teacher trainee replans the lesson plan in order to use the skill in more effective manner in the second trial. Step VII the revised lesson is taught to another comparable group of pupils. Step VIII The supervisor observes the re-teach lesson and gives re-feed back to the teacher trainee with convincing arguments and reasons. 7 Step IX The „teach – re-teach‟ cycle may be repeated several times till adequate mastery level is achieved. Micro teaching cycle The six steps generally involved in micro-teaching cycle are Plan , Teach , Feedback ,Re-plan , Reteach , Re-feedback. There can be variations as per requirement of the objective of practice session. These steps are diagrammatically represented in the following figure The above diagram gives us an outlook about Micro teaching process. The cycle continues up to the extent when a trainee will able to master a specific skill. The components of the microteaching cycle are shown in Figure (1). The Microteaching cycle starts with planning. In order to reduce the complexities involved in teaching, the student teacher is asked to plan a "microlesson" i.e a short lesson for 5-10 minutes which he will teach in front of a "microclass” i.e a group consisting 3-4 students, a supervisor and peers if necessary. There is scope for projection of model teaching skills if required to help the teacher prepare for his session. The student teacher is asked to teach concentrating one or few of the teaching skills enumerated earlier. His teaching is evaluated by the students, peers and the supervisor using cheekists to help them. Video recording can be done if facilities permit. At the- end of the 5 or 10 minutes session as planned, the teacher is given a feedback on the deficiencies noticed in his teaching methodology. Feedback can be aided by playing back the video recording. Using the feedback to help himself, the teacher is asked to re-plan his lesson keeping the comments in view and reteach immediately the same lesson to another group. Such repeated 8 cycles of teaching, feedback and re-teaching help the teacher to improve his teaching skills one at a time. Several such sequences can be planned at the departmental level. Colleagues and postgraduate students can act as peer evaluators for this purpose. It is important, however, that the cycle is used purely for helping the teacher and not as a tool for making a value judgment of his teaching capacity by his superiors. Plan : This involves the selection of the topic and related content of such a nature in which the use of components of the skill under practice may be made easily and conveniently. The topic is analyzed into different activities of the teacher and the pupils. The activities are planned in such a logical sequence where maximum application of the components of a skill is possible. Teach : This involves the attempts of the teacher trainee to use the components of the skill in suitable situations coming up in the process of teaching-learning as per his/her planning of activities. If the situation is different and not as visualized (in the planning of the activities, the teacher should modify his/her behavior as per the demand of the situation in the class. He should have the courage and confidence to handle the situation arising in the class effectively. Feedback : This term refers to giving information to the teacher trainee about his performance. The information includes the points of strength as well as weakness relating to his/her performance. This helps the teacher trainee to improve upon his/her performance in the desired direction. Re-plan : The teacher trainee replans his lesson incorporating the points of strength and removing the points not skillfully handled during teaching in the previous attempt either on the same topic or on another topic suiting to the teacher trainee for improvement. Re-teach : This involves teaching to the same group of pupils if the topic is changed or to a different group of pupils if the topic is the same. This is done to remove boredom or monotony of the pupil. The teacher trainee teaches the class with renewed courage and confidence to perform better than the previous attempt. Re-feedback : This is the most important component of Micro- teaching for behaviour modification of teacher trainee in the desired direction in each and every skill practice. 9  Time duration for the microteaching is; Teach : 6 Minutes. o Feedback : 6 Minutes. o Re-Plan :12 Minutes. o Re-Teach : 6 Minutes. o Re-Feedback : 6 Minutes. Component skills approach Inherent in the process of microteaching is what is called the "component skills approach", i.e the activity of teaching as a whole is broken down for learning purposes to its individual component skills. These individual skills which go to make teaching are: i)Lesson planning - having clear cut objectives, and an appropriate planned sequence. ii) Set induction - the process of gaining pupil attention at the beginning of the class. iii) Presentation - explaining, narrating, giving appropriate illustrations and examples, planned repetition where necessary. iv) Stimulus variation - avoidance of boredom amongst students by gestures, movements, focusing, silence, changing sensory channels etc. v)Proper use of audio - visual aids. vi) Reinforcement- Recognizing pupil difficulties, listening, encouraging pupil participation and response. vii) Questioning - fluency in asking questions, passing questions and adapting questions. viii) Silence and nonverbal cues (body language( 10 ix) Closure - method of concluding a teaching session so as to bring out the relevance of what has been learnt, its connection with past learning and its application to future learning. Planning a Microteaching Session The duration of a Microteaching session depends on the number of participants. Microteaching should take place in two separate classrooms where the second room is required for videotape viewing. It is helpful to organize professional videotaping, although this can also be done (taken over) by the participants upon instruction. Equipment for Microteaching session:  TV/Computer set  video recorder/camcorder  camera  tapes for camera  black- or whiteboard, flipchart, pin board, markers with different colors Steps in Microteaching and Rotating Peer Supervision I. Preparation Each participant of the session prepares a teaching segment. The presenter gives a brief statement of the general objectives of his/her presentation to be addressed. The group may be asked to focus their attention to particular elements of the lesson or of the teaching style. This may include pace, clarity of explanation, use of media, voice and body language, level of group interaction. II. Presentation and Observation Each participant presents his/her 10-minute teaching segment. He/she is allowed to use the media available. During the presentation, other participants serve as members of a supervisory team and take notes for the group feedback. Special assessment forms (Tables 1 and 2) may be helpful in standardizing the observation and feedback process. Each lesson is videotaped. Although the lesson is short, objective and procedures should be clear to generate useful discussions. 11  III. Videotape Viewing The presenter watches the tape of his/her presentation and decides whether or not the objectives were accomplished. He/she also makes a list of strengths and suggestions for personal improvement. Then he/she again joins the supervisory team. In the meantime the supervisory team discussed and made conclusions about the teacher‟s lecturing. IV. Discussion and Analysis While the presenter goes to another room to view the videotape, the supervisory team discusses and analyses the presentation. Patterns of teaching with evidence to support them are presented. The discussion should focus on the identification of recurrent behaviors of the presenter in the act of teaching. A few patterns are chosen for further discussions with the presenter. Only those patterns are selected which seem possible to alter and those which through emphasis or omission would greatly improve the teacher‟s presentation. Objectives of the lesson plan are also examined to determine if they were met. It is understood that flexible teaching sometimes includes the modification and omission of objectives. Suggestions for improvement and alternative methods for presenting the lesson are formulated. Finally, a member of the supervisory team volunteers to be the speaker in giving the collected group feedback. V. Giving and receiving feedback Under the guidance of the professional supervisor, the presenter is first asked to present a self-feed- back of his mini lesson. With this new information taken into account, the supervisory team member who volunteered to be the speaker summarizes the comments generated during the analysis session. This part of the session is intended to provide positive reinforcement and constructive criticism. The presenter is encouraged to interact freely with the team so that all comments are clarified to his/her satisfaction. The way in which feedback is given and received contributes to the learning process. Feedback should be honest and direct, constructive, focusing on the ways the presenter can improve, and containing personal observations. 12  The following is a series of suggestions on how to give and receive feedback in a microteaching workshop. Giving feedback When you are giving feedback, try to:  Be specific rather than general. For example: rather than saying “You weren‟t clear in your explanations”, tell the presenter where he/she was vague, and describe why you had trouble understanding him/her. Similarly, instead of saying: “I thought you did an excellent job!”, list the specific things that he/she did well.  Be descriptive and specific, rather than evaluative. For example: you would avoid starting the sentences with “you”, it is better to start with “I”, so you can say: “I understood the model, after you showed us the diagram.”  Describe something the person can act upon. Making a comment on the vocal quality of someone whose voice is naturally high-pitched is only likely to discourage him/her. However, if the person‟s voice had a squeaky quality because he/she was nervous, you might say: “You might want to breath more deeply, to relax yourself, and that will help to lower the pitch of your voice as well.”  Choose one or two things the person can concentrate on. If the people are overwhelmed with too many suggestions, they are likely to become frustrated. When giving feedback, call attention to those areas that need the most improvement.  Avoid conclusions about motives or feelings. For example: rather than saying: “You don‟t seem very enthusiastic about the lesson”, you can say “Varying your rate and volume of speaking would give you a more animated style.”  Begin and end with strengths of the presentation. If you start off with negative criticism, the person receiving the feedback might not even hear the positive part, which will come later. Receiving feedback When you are receiving feedback, try: 13   Not to respond to each point, rather listen quietly, hearing what other‟s experiences were during their review, asking only for clarification. The only time to interfere with what is being said is if you need to state that you are overloaded with too much feedback.  Be open to what you are hearing. Being told that you need to improve yourself is not always easy, but as we have pointed out, it is an important part of the learning process. Although, you might feel hurt in response to criticism, try not to let those feelings dissuade you from using the feedback to your best advantage.  Take notes, if possible. If you can, take notes as you are hearing the other people‟s comment. Than you will have a record to refer to, and you might discover that the comments that seemed to be the harshest were actually the most useful.  Ask for specific examples if you need to. If the critique you are receiving is vague or unfocused, ask the person to give you several specific examples of the point he/she is trying to make  Judge the feedback by the person, who is giving it. You do not have to agree with every comment. Ask other people if they agree with the person‟s critique.  In total, be practical, tactful, constructive critical, open toward other‟s ideas and opinions in the microteaching workshop and in your classes as well. Advantages of microteaching Microteaching has several advantages. It focuses on sharpening and developing specific teaching skills and eliminating errors. It enables understanding of behaviors important in classroom teaching. It increases the confidence of the learner teacher. It is a vehicle of continuous training applicable at all stages not only to teachers at the beginning of their career but also for more senior teachers. It enables projection of model instructional skills. It provides expert supervision and a constructive feedback and above all if provides for repeated practice without adverse consequences to the teacher or his students. 14   It helps to accomplish specific teacher competencies.  It caters the need of individual differences in the teacher training.  It is more effective in modifying teacher behaviour.  It is an individualized training technique.  It employs real teaching situation for developing skills.  It reduces the complexity of teaching process as it is a scaled down teaching.  It helps to get deeper knowledge regarding the art of teaching. Criticisms Lack of adequate and in-depth awareness of the purpose of microteaching has led to criticisms that microteaching produces homogenized standard robots with set smiles and procedures. It is said to be (wrongly) a form of play acting in unnatural surroundings and it is feared that the acquired skills may not be internalized. However, these criticisms lack substance. A lot depends on the motivation of the teacher to improve himself and the ability of the observer to give a good feedback. Repeated experiments abroad have shown that over a period of time microteaching produces remarkable improvement in teaching skills. Limitations of Microteaching It is skill oriented; Content not emphasized. A large number of trainees cannot be given the opportunity for re- teaching and re-planning.  It is very time consuming technique.  It requires special classroom setting.  It covers only a few specific skills.  It deviates from normal classroom teaching.  It may raise administrative problem while arranging micro lessons  But, time remains the major hurdle for microteaching sessions in a medical education training programs. These results in neither all the skills are practiced nor are all trainees given an opportunity for re-planning and re-teaching activities. The training becomes ineffective unless the teacher acquires the quality of effective student teaching. 15   The other limitations of microteaching include the following: No emphasis on contents, skill dependency, and administrative/logistic problems when the class size is large. This can be minimized by implementing the activities at the departmental level in several sequences. Extensive training programs are possible when the teachers are well equipped with core skills. These programs can then be effectively utilized for learning of new skills and strengthening and elaboration of existing skills. Hence, a better understanding of the complexities of the teaching process by the faculty is more important. Comparison between micro teaching and traditional one Micro Traditional 1. Objectives are specified in 1. Objectives are general and not behavioural terms. specified in behavioral terms. 2. Class consists of small group of 2. Class consists of 40-60 students. 5-10 students. 3. The teacher takes up one skill 3. The teacher practices several at a time. skills at a time. 4. Duration time for teaching is 5- 4. The duration is 40-50 minutes. 10 minutes. 5. There is immediate feed-back. 5.Immediate feed-back is not available 6. Teaching is carried on under 6. There is no control over situation. controlled situation. 7. Teaching is relatively simple. 7. Teaching become complex. 8. The role of supervisor is 8. The role of the supervisor is specific and well defined to vague. improve teaching. 9. Patterns of class room 9. Patterns of classroom interaction can be studied interactions cannot be studied objectively. objectively. But, time remains the major hurdle for microteaching sessions in a medical education training programs. These results in neither all the skills are practiced nor are all trainees given an opportunity for re-planning and re-teaching activities. The training becomes ineffective unless the teacher acquires the quality of effective student teaching. 16  The other limitations of microteaching include the following: No emphasis on contents, skill dependency, and administrative/logistic problems when the class size is large. This can be minimized by implementing the activities at the departmental level in several sequences. Extensive training programs are possible when the teachers are well equipped with core skills. These programs can then be effectively utilized for learning of new skills and strengthening and elaboration of existing skills. Hence, a better understanding of the complexities of the teaching process by the faculty is more important. 17