Microteaching

Dr. Vikram Gupta

Assistant Professor,
Dayanand Medical College & Hospital, Ludhiana
 What is Teaching?

Teaching is not merely imparting knowledge to

students, nor merely giving advice.

Teaching is not passing information to the

students.

Teaching is not sharing ones own experience.

2
 What is Teaching?

The best approach to understanding the nature of

teaching is establishing a harmonious relationship
between teacher, student and subject.
Teaching is the activity of facilitating learning.
Effectiveness in teaching does not relate to
teachers age, sex, and teaching experience.
One can become an effective teacher irrespective of
his/her age, sex and experience.
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 Defects in Teaching
Defects in Teaching: .
More Teachers talk: Most of the time in the
classroom, is devoted to teachers talk, and students
get very little opportunity to express themselves.

Only memory level: During classroom interaction,

teacher tends to promote mostly learning requiring
memory level thinking.

4
 Defects in Teaching
.
More information & less explanation: Most of the
teachers spend more time in giving information and
less on clarifying ideas and still less time for giving
explanations.
Less chance of encouragement: A very low
percentage of teachers time in the classroom is used
for making encouraging remarks.
No planning: Most of the teachers are not
systematic in planning and carrying out instruction.

5
What is learning?
Change in behavior brought about by activity,
training or experiences.
*Learning never ends.
*Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at
twenty or eighty.
* Anyone who keeps learning stays young.
*Effective learning is based on what the learner
already knows
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How learning happens? .:
Learning Knowledge acquired by study.
Learning happens and knowledge is generated
in an environment where interaction between
teachers, students and content takes place in
interactive ways.
There is a famous saying:
I hear I forget;
I see I remember;
I do I understand.
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 How learning happens? .:
Research around the world also suggest:
We remember ..

20% of what we hear;

30% of what we see;
50% of what we see and hear;
90% of what we see, hear & do.
Cont.

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 Changes in Teacher Role

A shift from: A shift to:

1. Knowledge transmitter, 1. Learning facilitator,
primary source of collaborator, coach,
information, content mentor, knowledge
expert, and source of all navigator, and co-
answers. learner.
2. Teacher controls and 2. Teacher gives students
directs all aspects of more options and
learning responsibilities for their
own learning

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Changes in Student Role
A shift from: A shift to:
1. Passive recipient of 1. Active participant in the
information. learning process.
2. Reproducing knowledge. 2. Producing and sharing
knowledge, participating
at times as expert.
3. Learning as a solitary 3. Learning collaboratively
activity with others

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 Introduction
Medical teachers unlike most other
teaching professionals are unique in that
no special prior or in service training in
pedagogic techniques is considered
necessary for their recruitment as
teachers or for their continued efficient
performance in that capacity.
 Under these circumstances their ability to
teach is largely dependant on one of two
modalities of self training
viz.

a) observation of other teachers or

b) by a process of trial and error while

actually teaching in a classroom situation.
 The former has the inherent disadvantage of
being essentially a passive process where
one learns by imitation.
It is time consuming and there is always the
inherent possibility of bad role models.
The latter process of learning "while doing" is
even more risky.
Apart from increased time and effort involved,
there is no attempt at discriminating between
various teaching skills to individualise the
learning of the teacher.
 There is hardly any constructive feedback
and even on the rare occasions when one
does get a feedback, there is no
opportunity to reteach the lesson to
implement what one has learnt from the
feedback.
The method of learning how to teach is
like a beginner being thrown into a
swimming pool as the first lesson on
swimming on the off-chance that faced
with the necessity to save himself he will
learn to swim.
 Practising while teaching is also
adversarial towards students' interest.
The conventional methods, therefore, fail
to be ideal for training medical teachers.
Microteaching, which was evolved by
Alien and his group in the late sixties to
improve the skills of teachers is an
excellent vehicle of providing medical
teachers with an opportunity to improve
their teaching skills.
 Defintion
Microteaching is a scaled down teaching
encounter in class size and time
- D.W.Allen(1966)
Microteaching is defined as a system of
controlled practice that makes it possible
to concentrate on specified teaching
behaviour and to practice teaching under
controlled conditions.
- D.W. Allen & A.W.Eve (1968)
 Microteaching 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 to 20 minutes
- L.C. Singh (1977)
 History
The idea of micro-teaching originated for the first
time at Stanford University in USA, when an
Experimental Project on the identification of
teaching skills was in progress under the guidance
and supervision of the faculty members (Bush,
Allen, McDonald Acheson and many others) in 1963
This project was aided by Ford Foundation and
Kettering Foundation.
The team of experts was assigned the development
of testing and evaluation tools to measure the
attainment of teaching skills.
 At this juncture Keath Acheson, a
research worker was investigating the
utility of video tape recorder in the
development of technical teaching skills.
This instrument could be used for
recording the class interaction and the
behaviours of the trainee vividly and
accurately.
This lead to the development of a
systematic and accurate method of giving
feedback to the teacher trainee.
 Since then this technique of teacher
training has been widely used in almost all
Colleges and Universities of Europe and
Asia.
In India, it is being used with great
emphasis in all the teacher training
programmes of developing teaching skills
and competencies among teacher
trainees.
 Microteaching

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.
Concept of Micro-teaching
Micro-teaching is a teacher training
technique which helps the teacher trainee
to master the teaching skills.
It requires the teacher trainee
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
Objectives of Microteaching
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.
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:
 Skills of Micro Teaching

1. Introduction Skill

4. Skill of Stimulus
2. Skill of Probing Variation
Questions

5. Skill of Black-
board Writing
3. Skill of Explanation

6. Skill of Achieving
Closure 27
Dr G L Gulhane 27
 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-
Recognising 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)
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
Skills of Micro teaching Techniques

The components of the skill of blackboard writing are:

i. Legibility ( Easy to read )
ii. Size and alignment ( In a straight line )
iii. Highlighting main points
iv. Utilization of the space
v. Blackboard summary
vi. Correctness
vii. Position of the teacher and
viii. Contact with the pupils.

37
Steps of Micro-teaching
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.
Step IX The teach re-teach cycle may be
repeated several times till adequate mastery
level is achieved.
Microteaching Cycle
 RE-TEACHING PLAN
6 MINUTES

RE-PLAN TEACHING
6 MINUTES
12 MINUTES

FEEDBACK
6 MINUTES
 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 behaviour s 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.
 Time duration for the
microteaching
Teach : 6 Minutes.
Feedback : 6 Minutes.

Re-Plan :12 Minutes.

Re-Teach : 6 Minutes.

Re-Feedback : 6 Minutes.
 Phases of Micro-teaching
1. Knowledge Acquisition Phase.

2. Skill Acquisition Phase.

3. Transfer Phase of Micro-teaching.

1. Knowledge Acquisition
Phase (Pre-Active Phase)
It includes the activities such as;
Provide knowledge about teaching
skills.
Observe the demonstration of teaching
skill.
Analyze and discuss the demonstration
of the teaching skill.
2. Skill Acquisition Phase
(Inter-active Phase)

It includes the activities such as;

Planning and preparation of micro
lesson for a skill.
Practicing the skill.
Evaluation of the practiced skill
(Feedback).
Re-plan , Re-teach and re-feedback till
the desired level of skill is achieved.
3. Transfer Phase (Post
Active Phase)

Giving opportunity to use the mastered

skill in normal class room teaching.

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.
Desirable Number of Pupils :15-20
Preferable Duration :20minutes.
Desirable Number of Skills :3-4 Skills
Microteaching Swirl
 Merits of Microteaching
It helps to develop and master important
teaching skills.
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.
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
Microteaching teaching Vs
Traditional Class room
Microteaching Traditional Class Room
Teaching
Teaching is Relatively Simple Complex Activity

controlled situation Uncontrolled

takes up one skill at a time several skill
Less no. of students More
Teaching time is 5 to 10 mts 40 to 50 mts
Student teacher provided No immediate Feedback
immediate feedback
Provision for reteaching No
Students gains confidence in Tense and scared
teaching
 Microteaching in India
The department of Teacher education in the
NCERT designed a project to study the
effectiveness of Microteaching in 1975 in
collaboration with the Centre of Advanced Study
in Education (CASE) Baroda.
Research and training programmes for teacher
educators were also initiated in collaboration
with the department of Education, University of
Indore.
Passi, Singh and Jangira developed instructional
materials which were used to train teacher
educators.
FORMAT OF MICRO LESSON PLAN

CLASS
TIME
SKILL (ONE OR TWO)
SPECIFIC CONTENT
BEHAVORAL OBJECTIVES
FORMAT OF MICRO LESSON PLAN
CONTENT TEACHER LEARNER COMPONENT
BEHAVIOUR BEHAVIOUR
 SUMMARY
Microteaching involves presentation of micro
lesson
Audience.small group of peers.
Feedback given by peers role playing as
students
Participants learn about strengths & weakness
in themselves as teachers
Plan strategies for improvement in
performance
Why teaching profession is good?
 Remember!!!
Even the best teacher can learn a great deal
from his or her students
Secret
 Need of the hour

Working Together, We Can achieve

our goal and expected qualities in
higher education
Present Teacher Expected Teacher

Dr G L Gulhane 72
THANX

Instrument: Assessment Rubric

quality and volume of voice
correct pronunciation
use of fillers
amount of eye contact
clarity of instruction
attention-getting motivational technique that elicits prior
knowledge
continuity and pace of lesson (made appropriate use of
time)
use of chalkboard, audiovisual aids, computer, overhead
projector,
questioning skills, including use of appropriate wait-time
accuracy of subject-area content and solid application to
students lives
(scale 1-5)