Micro Teaching – Meaning, Definition & Importance
The current popular practice of teaching in which teachers are given the opportunity to enhance their teaching skills by improving simple tasks is termed Microteaching. It helps to enhance the real-time teaching experiences of teachers. Microteaching which involves the skills of presentation and reinforcement helps novice teachers to learn how to teach students or the art of teaching at ease. Thus, the importance of Microteaching can’t be ignored.
Microteaching has been used in various fields impactfully such as life sciences, health sciences etc. The Medical Council of India has been introducing changes in medical curricula and this arises the need of getting special training to make the role of medical teachers important. There arises a need also to monitor the skills of teachers for their constant growth in performance.
Though Microteaching has limitations which can easily be minimized by implementing Microteaching at the departmental level.
What is Micro Teaching?
Micro-Teaching meaning is not only the transfer of knowledge from teachers to students and others. In fact, it is a complex process which facilitates the process of learning. Teachers are of different levels and the quality of their teaching is measured by measuring the level of understanding of students from their teaching. The classrooms can never convert into a platform for gaining primary teaching skills. It becomes more challenging in the case of training medical teachers as they require specific teaching skills in medical education programs.
Teaching skills to teach can be gained through technical training in a more structured and cheaper way. The introduction of microteaching has made a way simpler for teachers to get training in a specific field.
There is a need to incorporate the teaching of microteaching more frequently and also with minimum available facilities.
Definition of Micro Teaching
The objective of Microteaching is to teach teachers techniques for learning teaching skills. With this teaching, real teaching situations are put forward to take their advantage for developing skills and getting deeper knowledge about the art of teaching and how to teach.
Dwight W. Allen and his co-workers first adopted the concept of Micro-teaching in 1961. It is a contribution of Stanford University. Simply, Microteaching helps to introduce a simplified way to reduce the complexities of the teaching process. General and rigid settings can not make teaching which is a complete process easy but with well-defined components, it can be practised, taught and evaluated. There are a lot of verbal and non-verbal acts in teaching. The concept of Microteaching clears that teaching includes various skills. A teacher will be efficient in teaching only when they acquire specific skills. Practice can make these teaching skills effective.
The concept of Microteaching stresses practising teaching under controlled conditions with specific teaching behaviours. It automatically improvises the behaviour of the teacher and makes the teaching-learning process more effective. While following Microteaching, one should not put it in real teaching as it is a scale-down sample of teaching. For example, a driver never allows their learner to drive on the highway on his first driving lesson. Start with a less-risky situation because if the learners make a mistake, it does not harm anyone. Thus, it is required to break down the complex act of teaching into simpler components, so that it could be managed properly.
Microteaching learning emphasizes only one particular skill which is ‘how to teach’ rather than ‘what to teach. This skill is practised, attempted, and developed during the entire learning session.
It offers to teach the practice to teachers where the normal complexities are reduced as,
- Length of the lesson.
- Number of students
- Scope of the lesson
- Class time
Features Of Microteaching
There are the following features of Microteaching:
Micro-Element
The concept of Microteaching is clear: it helps reduce the complexities of teaching and makes it easier for teachers. The complexities arrive in times of teaching, during the lesson, and the subject matter and they can be overcome by concentrating on the training process.
Teachers can get training in specifically one skill as well. Before attempting the performance of complicated tasks, teachers should master the task’s components.
Teaching Skills and Teaching Strategies
There are many skills decided by researchers which represent the tasks, procedures and strategies of teaching many subjects at different levels. These skills may be classified as:
Pre-Instructional Skill: consists of writing instructional objectives, sequencing and organizing knowledge for achieving specific appropriate content, goals, proper organization, selection of proper audio-visual aids and others.
Instructional skills: Consist of probing questions, reinforcing pupil participation, introducing a lesson, skills explaining and illustrating, reinforcement, diagnosing pupil’s difficulties and others.
Post-Instructional skills: Post-Instructional skills consists of writing test, performing a test, interpreting students, planning remedial measures and others.
The feedback Element
Supervisors give feedback keeping the present system in mind after analysing the teaching competency of the trainees. Feedbacks are dependent on reliable and authentic sources of Microteaching.
- Teachers give oral feedback.
- The participating peer groups fill observation schedules.
- Right feedback is given by audio-tape recording.
- But the most accurate feedback is given by Video-tape recording.
Safe Practice Ground
The classroom features are also available in the micro-teaching laboratory.
Micro Teaching Skills
Different types of micro-teaching skills are as follow:
- Introduction of Skills
- Skills of Explaining
- Skills of Probing Questions
- Skills of Blackboard Writing
Now you have to know the Micro-teaching skills, but we go in deeper and let us know about them.
Introduction of Skills
The Micro-teaching skills of introduction involved using precious knowledge and also telling them exactly what they can expect from a lesson. Teachers can use interesting or engaging words to get their students. Teachers can maximise the use of students’ previous knowledge and give relevance of Micro-Teaching to teachers’ education of statements.
Skills of Explaining
Teachers need to learn microteaching skills of explaining to make students understand concepts and ideas properly and can explain well is able to make a topic or lesson effective. They should give examples by highlighting relationships among different ideas.
Skills of Probing Questions
The Skills of Probing Questions that help put meaningful, specific, clear, relevant and precise questions to students and get a better understanding. This skill is used to test the understanding and knowledge of students.
Skills of Blackboard Writing
The Skill of Blackboard Writing is used to draw attention and used to bring about clarity to concepts. It is also used to shift focus, grab attention and help add variety to a lesson.
The Teaching Models
By using teaching models, a tape, a film, or a demonstration by the supervisor, the learners of teaching skills can study the desired patterns of behaviour.
The following programmes can be found in Microteaching:
- In teaching a specific teaching behaviour, a particular skill is taught to pupils.
- To sharpen the particular skill, the teachers are given a demonstration lesson.
- Students are taught a pre-decided model on a suitable topic relating to the particular skill which he wants to master.
- By using an audiotape or videotape recorder, students get instant feedback. The supervisor helps students to observe and analyze the lesson. The feedback session by the peer group is called a ‘critique session”
- The comments of the supervisor direct the teacher to re-plan or re-structures the same lesson to sharpen the skill.
- Once, the pupil revised the lesson, it is re-taught to them.
- Then again feedback is given to them which is called the ‘re-feedback session’.
Conclusion
The skills of Microteaching helps pupil-teachers improve their own teaching. By learning the new skills of a particular teaching, the complex teaching processes can be simplified. The importance of Microteaching can’t be ignored as it is beneficial for teaching certain fields which require special teaching skills.
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