Micro-teaching and its procedure

by Yuvi - February 24, 2021

Micro-teaching and its procedure

Microteaching is a unique model of practice teaching. It is a viable instrument for the desired change in the teaching behavior or the behavior potential which, in specified types of real classroom situations, tends to facilitate the achievement of specified types of objectives.

The pupil-teachers trained using the microteaching instrument are expected to have a greater range of technical teaching skills to choose from for overcoming day to day classroom teaching problems.

Invented in the mid-1960s at Stanford University by Dr. Dwight Allen, micro-teaching has been used with success for several decades now, as a way to help teachers acquire new skills.

Definition of Microteaching –

According to G.A. Brown (1978), microteaching may be described as a scaled down teaching situation in which a teacher teaches a brief lesson to small group of pupils or fellow trainees. The lesson may last from three or four minutes to twenty minutes. In most cases about 10 minutes is preferred. The small group may consist of three or four pupils or peers, or up to fifteen pupils or peers.

According to Allen and Ryan, microteaching is an idea with five essential propositions. Microteaching is a real teaching.

Firstly, microteaching lessens the complexities of normal classroom teaching so that class size, scope of content and time are all reduced.

Secondly, focuses on training for accomplishment of specific tasks such as practice of instructional skills, demonstration of teaching method, practice of techniques of teaching, and others.

Thirdly, microteaching allows for the increased control of practice. The rituals of time, students, supervision, and many other factors can be manipulated and greatly expands the feedback dimensions in teaching. Immediately after teaching a brief micro-lesson, the trainee engages in a critique of his classroom performance.

Microteaching is a teacher training technique which helps the teacher trainee to master the teaching skills. It requires the teacher trainee the following 4S:.

1. to teach a single concept of content.
2. using a specified teaching skill.
3. for a short time.
4. to a very small member of pupils.

Microteaching cycle –

The six steps generally involved in Microteaching cycle are:.

Plan → Teach → Feedback → Re-plan → Re-teach → Re-feedback.

There can be variations as per requirement of the objective of practice session. These steps are diagrammatically represented in the following figure: .

1. 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 applications of the components of a skill are possible.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. Re-plan: The teacher trainee re-plans 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.
5. 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.
6. Re-feedback: This is the most important component of Microteaching for behavior modification of teacher trainee in the desired direction in each and every skill practice.