Micro Teaching | Meaning, Definitions, Importance and Process

Meaning of Micro-Teaching

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 components 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 time frame, 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 has been implemented.

Micro teaching introduces the teacher trainee to a wide range of teaching skills and allows the teacher trainee to practice each skill one at a time until he or she becomes proficient in the skill. Later on, the teacher trainee will be able to link many such skills to achieve the desirable outcome. Micro teaching provides teachers with a practice setting or instruction in which the normal complexities of classroom are reduced and in which the teacher gets feedback on performance. Micro teaching is a procedure in which a student teacher practices teaching with a reduce number of pupils in a reduced period of time with emphasis on narrow and specific teaching skills.

Definitions of Micro-Teaching

1. According to D. W. Allen, "Micro teaching is a scaled down teaching encounter in class size and time."

2. According to B. M. Shore, "Micro teaching is a real teaching range of activities."

3. According to Mc. And Unwin, "The term Micro Teaching is most often applied to the use of closed circuit television to give immediate feedback of a trainee teacher's performance in a simplified environment."

4. According to B.K. Pasee, "Micro teaching is a training technique which requires student teachers to reach a single concept using specified teaching skills to a small numbers of pupils in a short duration of time."

Process of Micro Teaching

Micro-teaching is a technique that aims to prepare teacher candidates for the actual classroom setting. With the help of this technique, the teacher candidate attempts to learn by breaking each teaching skill into smaller parts and without having to face the chaotic environment of overcrowded classrooms. During micro-teaching, the skills of actively presenting and demonstrating student interactions are developed while inculcating teaching skills in the students.

Wilkinson, emphasizes that the teacher candidate experiences the actual teaching and learning rules with the help of this method. This method provides opportunities for teachers to discover and reflect on their own and others' teaching styles and enables them to learn about new teaching techniques.

(i). Curriculum formulation

Teaching skills (describing, interpreting, asking questions, etc.) by the student teacher are any one of the skills that have to be learned during the training so that the micro-teaching curriculum is prepared. Class-teaching- The student teacher teaches short lessons to fellow students for 5 to 10 minutes, which are called teaching sessions.

(ii). Teach

The next step is to teach. The trainee teaches the class according to the plan and conveys what they had prepared for. This will be supervised by the trainer.

(iii). Feedback

The information given in the evaluation form developed by the supervisor of the lesson taught by the student teacher, in which the shortcomings left by the student teacher in teaching are mentioned. With this feedback, the student teacher rectifies her shortcomings.

(iv). Re-curricular

Immediately after the feedback, the student teacher rearranges his/her lesson, this activity is called a rearrangement session.

(v). Re-plan

After re-planning, the re-planned lesson is done by re-teaching on another group. This stage is called re-educational session.

(vi). Re-feedback

After re-teaching, feedback is provided by the invigilator to the student teacher, through this process the student teacher continuously improves his shortcomings.

Advantages of Micro-Teaching

The following are the main advantages of micro-teaching:

1. It reduces normal classroom teaching by Scaled down teaching.
2. The training of teachers becomes individualized. Each trainee makes progress undeveloped teaching skills at his own rate depending on this ability.
3. It focuses attention on teaching behaviour to modify and improve in the desired direction.
4. Micro teaching can be done either in real classroom conditions or in simulated conditions.
5. It is useful for developing teaching efficiency in pre-service and in-service teacher-education programmes.
6. It is an effective feedback device for the modification of teacher behaviour.
7. It is a training device for improving teaching practice and prepare effective teacher or better teachers.
8. The knowledge and practice of teaching skills can be given by the use of micro teaching.
9. It permits to increase control and regulates teaching practice.
10. The specific teaching skills are developed by the micro-teaching experiences, e.g., reinforcement skill, probing question etc.

Importance of Micro teaching

Micro teaching has a pivotal role in all medical education training programs and contributes to a great extent to the better understanding of teaching process and its complexities. A case study on micro teaching lesson study combining the elements of Japanese lesson study and micro teaching technique reported that the pre- and post-lesson plans had successfully demonstrated growth in teachers' knowledge on teaching. The each, critique, re-teach" model in a dental education program identified micro teaching as a technique for personality development and confidence-building of health professionals.

Nature of Micro Teaching

The nature of micro-teaching can be expressed in the following form-

1. Micro-learning is an inter-process.
2. Micro teaching is the process of establishing a mutual relationship between the teacher and the students.
3. Micro teaching is the process of bringing changes in the behavior of the students.
4. Micro-learning is a purpose-fulfilling process.
5. Micro learning is a developmental process.
6. Micro learning is a formal and informal process.
7. Micro learning is a logical process.
8. Micro learning is a tripartite process.

Need of Micro Teaching

Following are the need of micro-teaching which are given below-

1. Micro-teaching is a very flexible method which is organized on the basis of subject and circumstances.
2. Micro teaching is very necessary to remove the complexities of the course duration and subjects.
3. On the basis of the changes brought in the students through micro-teaching, the backing is provided immediately.
4. Micro-learning is essential for evaluating specific exams.

Phases of Micro Teaching

1. Knowledge Acquisition Phase
2. Skill Acquisition Phase
3. Transfer Phase

1. Knowledge Acquisition Phase

In the learning stage, the student teacher acquires the knowledge of various teaching skills, for which she is to be trained.

2. Skill Acquisition Phase

In the skill acquisition stage, the student teacher after seeing the demonstration lesson prepares a curriculum plan for micro-teaching. And then practices that skill till he attains proficiency in that skill. Two components of this stage are important–

1. Feedback Status
2. Micro learning planning stage

3. Transfer Phase

In the transfer stage, the student teacher transfers the skills learned through micro-teaching to actual classroom situations. and completes the teaching process.

Conclusion

Micro teaching works as a focused instrument which helps to practice essential teaching skills safely and effectively at any age. Learning is a change in behaviour, which is brought about by activity, training, or experiencing at any age. When the learner is more experienced, learning becomes more effective. The most important quality of the participants of micro teaching sessions is the ability to give and receive constructive feedback with an open mind and achieves appropriate teaching-learning goals. In addition, it increases self-confidence of teacher in an atmosphere of friendliness and equanimity.

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