MICRO TEACHING
Prepared by
SABARISH-P
M.Sc., M.Ed.,NET
Lecturer in Physical Science, Arafa Institute for Teacher Education
Attur, Thrissur.
INTRODUCTION
Micro teaching
technique was first adopted at Stanford University, USA in 1961 by Dwight W.
Allen and his co-workers and is now followed in many countries with modified
and improved techniques.It is a training procedure for teacher preparation
aimed at simplifying the complexities of the regular teaching process.Micro
teaching is a scaled down sample of teaching in whivh a teacher teaches a small
unit to a small group of 5-10 pupils for a small period of 5 to 10 minutes.Such
a situation offers a helpful setting for a teacher to acquire new teaching
skills and to refine old ones. Micro teaching is a new design for teacher
training , which provides trainees with feedback about their performance immediately
after completion of lessons.
DEFINITIONS OF MICRO
TEACHING
• Micro-teaching
is a scaled down teaching encounter in class size and class time –Allen (1966)
• Micro-teaching
is a trainer education technique which allows the teacher to apply well defined
teaching skills to a carefully prepared lesson in a planned series of five to
ten minutes’ encounter with a small group of real classroom students often with
a opportunity to observe the performance on videotape –Buch (1968)
OBJECTIVES OF MICRO
TEAHING
• To
enable teacher trainees to learn and assimilate new teaching skills under
controlled conditions.
• To
enable teacher trainees to gain confidence in teaching and to master a number
of skills by dealing with a small group of pupils.
CHARACTERISTICS OF
MICRO TEACHING
• It
is a real teaching but focuses on developing teaching skills.
• It
is a scaled-down teaching
i.
Which reduces the class size to five or
ten pupils.
ii.
Which reduces the duration of period to
five-ten minutes.
iii.
Which reduces the content.
iv.
Which reduces the teaching complexities.
• It
provides feedback for trainer’s performance.
• It
is a training device to prepare effective teachers.
STEPS IN MICRO TEACHING
• Defining
the skill in terms of specific teaching behaviour.
• Demonstration
of the skill by the teacher educator.
• Preparation
of the lesson plan by the teacher trainee.
• Teaching
of the lesson plan by the teacher trainee.
• Providing
immediate feedback.
• Arranging
re-planning, re-teaching and re-feedback sessions.
• Repetition
of plan, teach, feedback, re-plan, re-teach and re-feedback cycle till the skill
is acquired.
PHASES OF MICRO
TEACHING
• Knowledge
Acquisition Phase
a)Observing
demonstration of the skill.
b)Analysing it and
discussing about the demonstration.
• Skill
Acquisition Phase
a)Preparing micro
lesson involving the skill.
b)Practising teaching
skill while teaching.
• Transfer
Phase
Evaluating performance through feedback,
replan, re-teach and transfer of skill to actual class teachings in macro sessions.
TEACHING SKILLS
Teaching skill is a set
of related overt behaviours of the teacher (verbal and non verbal) which are
observable, definable, measurable, demonstratable and refinable through
practice.
According to B.K. Passi (1976), Teaching
skills are a group of teaching acts or behaviours intended to facilitate
pupil’s learning directly or indirectly.
Some of the teaching
skills are extensively used in routine teaching by all teachers.These skills
are known as Core teaching skills.Many experts in this field have listed the
following skills as Core teaching skills.
• Skill
of Introducing a lesson.
• Skill
of Stimulus Variation.
• Skill
of Explaining.
• Skill
of Illustrating with Examples.
• Skill
of using Blackboard.
• Skill
of Probing questions.
• Skill
of Questioning.
• Skill
of Reinforcement.
1.
SKILL OF INTRODUCING A LESSON
When a teacher
introduces a lesson , he gives a brief introduction about the lesson inorder to
pre-dispose the pupil’s minds to it.This has to serve two main functions,
namely refreshing and ensuring the pre requisites and motivating the pupils to
learn the new lesson.
COMPONENTS OF THE SKILL
Desirable
behaviours
a) Use
of previous knowledge/pre-requisites- To satisfy the maxim of teaching from
known to unknown , the teacher has to judiciously decide upon the
pre-requisites that will be essential for properly presenting the new learning
material.
b) Use
of Appropriate devices- Many devises such as lecturing, describing, narrating,
illustrating, storytelling, role playing analogy, demonstration, audio-visual
materials, experimentation/demonstrations, etc.are used for motivating pupils
and to gradually lead them to the new learning material.
Undesirable
behaviour
a) Lack
of continuity.
b) Uttering
irrelevant statements and questions.
2.
SKILL OF STIMULUS VARIATION
It involves deliberate
change of stimuli presented by the teacher for the purpose of drawing,
stimulating and maintaining the attention of the learners throughout the class.
COMPONENTS OF THE SKILL
• Teacher
movements- Meaningful, purposeful movements with pedagogical function.
• Teacher
gestures- Gestures are movements of the parts of the body, used for expressing
emotions, size, shape, direction etc. and also for directing attention.
• Change
in Speech pattern- Change in volume, tone or speed of verbal communication for
attracting attention.
• Change
in interaction style- Teacher-class interaction, teacher-pupil interaction and
pupil-pupil interaction should be there.
• Focussing-
Drawing attention to specific aspects to be stressed, by verbal or gestural
focusing,
• Pausing- Deliberate use of silence during
talk.
• Oral-Visual
Switching.- Change of sensory channel from verbal to visual and vice versa.
3.
SKILL OF EXPLAINING
Explaining
is the skill by which teacher can clearly bring out the exact meaning of a
concept or an idea and also can arrive at relationships among various concepts.
COMPONENTS OF THE SKILL
Desirable
behaviours
·
Use of beginning statements- For drawing
and maintaining attention and making the students mentally ready for learning
give them some clues of explanation.
·
Use of Explaining links- Words and
phrases which increase the effectiveness of explanation should be used.For eg.
As a result of, Therefore, In order to, Because, Due to etc.
·
Use of mediators- Presentation of
various mediators in the form of examples, diagrams etc. should be used to make
explanation lucid and meaningful to the pupils.
·
Use of concluding statements- The
purpose of it is to present a consolidated pricture of what has been explained.
·
Questions to test pupil’s understanding-
In the course of explanation, frequently questions should be asked which will
help the teacher get immediate feedback from the pupils.
Undesirable
behaviour
·
Use of irrelevant statements.
·
Lack of continuity.
·
Lack of fluency.
·
Using inappropriate vocabulary.
·
Use of vague words and phrases
·
Deviating from the main points.
4.
SILL OF ILLUSTRATING WITH EXAMPLES
This
is the skill for timely use of examples for the purpose of making an idea ,
concept or principle lucid.
COMPONENTS
OF THE SKILL
• Formulating
simple examples.
• Formulating
relevant examples.
• Formulating
Interesting examples.
• Use
of appropriate media for examples.
• Use
of Inductive-deductive approach for examples.
5.
SKILL OF USING BLACKBOARD
Blackboard
is the most widely used of all visual aids.It is one of the quickest and easiest
means of illustrating an important point.
COMPONENTS
OF THE SKILL
• Legibility
of handwriting- Maximum ease in reading what is written on the blackboard even
for the students sitting on the back bench should be ensured.
v Distinct
difference between letters.
v Adequate
spacing between letters.
v Adequate
spacing between words.
v Slant
of letters nearly vertical.
v All
small letters of the same size.
v All
capital letters of the same size.
v Size
of the letters large enough to be read.
v Thickness
of the line uniform.
• Neatness
in blackboard work.
v Adequate
spacing between lines.
v Lines
parallel to the base of the board.
v No
overwriting.
v Focussing
the relevant matter.
• Organisation
of blackboard work.
v Systematic
planning of the space.
v Spacing
to exhibit the sequence of the items being presented.
v Adjustment
of the space for presenting related items in totality.
• Appropriateness
of blackboard work.
v Continuity
in points.
v Points
brief(Brevity).
v Appropriate
presentation of illustrations and diagrams.
v Proper
use of colour chalk.
v Underlining
the important points to be stressed.
6.
SKILL OF FLUENCY IN QUESTIONING
Successful
teaching is highly dependent on questioning.The rate of meaningful questions
put per unit time by the teacher is called fluency of questioning.
COMPONENTS
OF THE SKILL
a) Structure-
Structure of the question is the technique of formulation of questions.The
following aspects have to be taken care of while framing questions.
i.
Grammmatical correctness
ii.
Conciseness
iii.
Relevance
iv.
Specificity
b)Process-
The process of asking questions involves more than one aspect
i.
Speed
ii.
Voice
iii.
Pause
iv.
Style
c)Product
– Product is the answer expected of the question.
7. SKILL
OF PROBING QUESTIONS
This
is the skill required in applying the technique of effectively dealingwith
student responses for going deep into their knowledge.
COMPONENTS
OF THE SKILL
• Prompting-
When there is no response or incorrect response teacher gives hints or clues
for leading the pupil to the desired correct response.
• Seeking
further information- teacher should ask subsidiary questions inorder to seek
further information.
• Refocusing-
When the pupil give correct response, the teacher relates their responses with
something already taught.
• Increasing
critical awareness- Teacher asks why and how of a correct response for increasing
critical awareness in pupils.
• Re-direction
– Asking the same question to another pupil for increasing pupil participation.
8.
SKILL OF REINFORCING
Reinforcement
is the major condition for effective learning.Hence the teacher has to master
the skill for adopting appropriate atratergies for reinforcing the learners.
COMPONENTS
OF THE SKILL
• Positive
verbal reinforcement- Students can be motivated through verbal expressions like
Good, Right, Fine, Well done, Excellent, Carry on, Go ahead etc
• Positive
Non-verbal reinforcement- Nodding the head, Smiling, Patting, friendly look
etc.
• Negative
verbal reinforcement- Words like wrong, incorrect, No etc.
• Negative
non-verbal reinforcement- Staring, looking angrily, shaking the head etc.
UNDESIRABLE
BEHAVIOUR
• Denial
of Reinforcement
• Inappropriate
use of reinforcement
ADVANTAGES OF MICRO
TEACHING
• Teacher
trainees trained through micro- teaching are found to perform better
• Employs
real teaching for the purpose of developing skills.
• Teacher
trainees are made aware of the various skills of which teaching is composed.
• It
is economical in terms of time and money.
• It
helps to gain deeper knowledge due to feed back ,re-plan and re-teach cycles.
• Lessens
the complexities of normal classroom teaching.
• It
is motivational.
• It
is scientific.
• It
helps in modifying teacher behaviour.
LIMITATIONS OF MICRO
TEACHING
• Skill
oriented rather than content
• Scope
is narrow
• Requires
competent teacher educator
• Tends
to reduce creativity of teacher
• Time
consuming
• Micro-teaching
alone may not be adequate.
• Carried
on only in a controlled situation
INTEGRATION OF SKILLS
Having armed the
teacher trainees with a battery of teaching subskills , the next stage is the
integration of those sub skills into the major skill.A deliberate programme of
integration of sub skill is called Link Practice or Link Lessons.There are many
methods for link practice.One of the method is that after practicing three sub
skills separately, the trainee may combine all the three sub skills in a lesson
of ten minutes.He then practices another three sub skills separately and links
them.He then combines all the six sub skills in a single lesson of 15
minutes.And so on till all the sub skills are combined in a macro lesson of 40
minutes and teaching a full class.
CONCLUSION
Teaching is a very
complex process beyond the capabilities of the teacher trainee at the beginning
of the course.Micro teaching simplifies the teacher training process so
thatbthe trainee can easily master the teaching skills.It is advantageous as it
links theory and practice in education.In micro teching the trainee is able to
see the relevance of psychology for the teaching process.Its difference from
conventional teaching is that the trainee is provided with a detailed feed back
about his teaching.Anyway in training programme micro teaching has a great
importance.
