MICRO TEACHING

Micro teaching was developed in the early and mid-1960’s by Dwight Allen and his colleagues at the Stanford teacher education programme. The Stanford model emphasized a teach, review and reflect, re-teach approach, using actual school students as authentic audiences.

A micro lesson is an opportunity to present a samples snapshot‖ of what/how you teach and to get some feedback from colleagues about how it was received. The microteaching cycle starts with planning. In order to reduce the complexities involved in teaching, the student teacher is asked to plan a micro lesson‖ i.e a short lesson for 5-10 minutes which he will teach in front of a micro class‖ i.e necessary.

DEFINITIONS OF MICRO- TEACHING

Micro-teaching has been defined in a number of ways. Some selected definitions are given below:

ü Micro-teaching is a scaled down teaching encounter in class size and class time.

ü Micro-teaching is defined as a system of controlled practice that makes it possible to concentrate on specified teaching behaviour and to practices teaching under controlled conditions.

ü Micro-teaching is a teacher education technique which allows teachers to apply clearly defined teaching skills to carefully prepared lessons in a planned series of 5-10 minutes encounter with a small group of real students, often with an opportunity to observe the result on video-tape.

ü Micro-teaching 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 5-20 minutes. Such a situation offers a helpful setting for an experienced or inexperienced teacher to acquire new teaching skills and to refine old ones.

THE BEGGININGS OF MICRO- TEACHING

Stanford University developed Microteaching in 1963 as a part of an experimental program. It was viewed as feasible in making student- teachers aware of the realities of teaching. It also served as a measurable tool in identifying teaching skills prior to actual teaching.

PURPOSES OF MICRO- TEACHING

There are two purposes of Microteaching: (a) for student- teachers to develop teaching skills under controlled conditions without risking the learning of the pupils, and (b) for experienced teachers to examine and refine their techniques.

PHASES OF MICRO- TEACHING:

According to J.C. Clift and others, micro-teaching procedure has three phases:

1. Knowledge acquisition phase: In this phase, the student teacher attempt to acquire knowledge about the skill- it’s rational, its role in class room and its component behaviours. For this he reads relevant literature. He also observes demonstration lesson-mode of presentation of the skill. The student teacher gets theoretical as well as practical knowledge of the skill.

2. Skill acquisition phase: On the basis of the model presented to the student-teacher, he prepares a micro-lesson and practices the skill and carries out the micro-teaching cycle. There are two components of this phase:

(a)  feedback

(b)  micro-teaching settings.

Micro-teaching settings include conditions like the size of the micro-class, duration of the micro-lesson, supervisor, types of students etc.

3. Transfer phase: Here the student-teacher integrates the different skills. In place of artificial situation, he teaches in the real classroom and tries to integrate all the skills.

Micro teaching was developed in the early and mid-1960’s by Dwight Allen and his colleagues at the Stanford teacher education programme. The Stanford model emphasized a teach, review and reflect, re-teach approach, using actual school students as authentic audiences.

Micro teaching Cycle

The above diagram gives us an outlook about Micro teaching process. The cycle continues up to the extent when a trainee will able to master a specific skill.

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 analysed 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.

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 visualised in the planning of the activities, the teacher should modify his/her behaviour 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.

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 modifiction of teacher trainee in the desired direction in each and every skill practice.

In the Micro-teaching cycle, the same steps are involved. Firstly the teacher trainee knows the behaviours (components of skill) to be practiced. Secondly he practices such a behaviour during teach session. Thirdly he gets the feedback on the basis of the observation of his performance made by the supervisor. Finally the teacher trainee improves upon his/her behaviour (performance) as desired.

ADVANTAGES OF MICROTEACHING

Microteaching has several advantages. It focuses on sharpening and developing specific teaching skills and eliminating errors. It enables understanding of behaviours important in classroom teacher. It enables projection of model instructional skills. It provides expert supervision and a constructive feedback and above all if provides for repeated practice without adverse consequences to the teacher or his students.

In our daily life, the busy schedule tends us to invite more problems and we get caught in situation by one way or another. If these problems are not attended properly; these tend to tease you on every step. They say if you are not a part of solution than you are a part of problem. However the significance lies in the solution of the problem, no matter what procedure one adopts to acquire the solution.

PREPARATION OF MICRO TEACHING

To prepare a short lesson for a small group of learner. Your lesson can be excerpted from the beginning, middle or end of one course lesson and you will be able to explain this in setting up your lesson and as part of your application or instruction form. 

TEACHING AIDS

Chart

A chart is something that shows a group of facts in the form of a diagram, table, or a graph. Teaches can use small alphabet charts on student desks to aid in learning the alphabet.

Flash chart

A flash card is part of a set of cards that has numbers, letters, pictures or words on it. Flash cards may also be used to enhance student memory. Try playing a memory game with the facts on the cards.To start with, we will always choose comprehension activities. This means that the students are not requires saying the new words, just to understand them. Then they will be ready to develop tasks in which they have to speak without models.

 Flip charts

Flip charts are useful for teaching larger group at one time. Flipchart are often placed on an easel, which allows the teacher to easily move it. A teacher can use a flip chart when she is showing different parts of lessons, stages in the process of something steps of something, or the progress of a story as it unfolds. Flip charts are very versatile and can be used for all classes.

Maps

Maps are something teachers can use for various projects or lessons. A map is something to use when a teacher is describing where a city, state, country, or continent is located.

 Calendar

A calendar is a chart that shows dates in each month of the year. Teachers can use calendars for teaching days of the month and the month to her class.

 Graphs

Teacher can make their own graphs and use them to compare population growth in social studies, numbers or ratios of objects in math class, or even use them for charting student growth.

Surveys

These are another great teaching aid. Teacher can make their own survey to pass out class. Surveys are a great way for a teacher to get feedback and use that feedback to improve teaching skills or change future lessons for more success.

UNIT PLAN

A unit plan is developed by the teacher and serves as a long-range plan. Its contains multiple lessons that are related. Below you will find the suggested unit plan format components followed by explanations of each. While all unit plans are not identical, the major components will remain the same. A language learning unit plan is a subdivision of your language learning programme made up of a series of daily lesson plans. The units may be determined in various ways, depending on the overall approach to language learning being followed.

HERBARTIAN STEPS

Based on his work, herbart’s follower designed a five step teaching method:

·       Prepare the pupil to be ready for the new lesson.

·       Present the new lesson

·       Associate the new lesson with ideas studied earlier.

·       Use examples to illustrate the lesson’s major points

·       Test pupils to ensure they had learned the new lesson.

FORMAT OF TYPICAL LESSON

A typical lesson might look like the following

·         Tune up—Guitars need regular tuning.

·         Knowledge review—Review of notes, strings, chords, technique, and other recently covered material.

·         Skill and drill—Drills focus on fine motor skills for either the right hand or the left hand, sometimes both.

·         Performance goal check—Each week students try to achieve short term goal and complete assignments.

·         Check off—if the student shows mastery of the new goal, I ask the student to feel good about the accomplishment.

·         Problem correction—is it a problem related to skill, ability, knowledge, understanding, etc.

·         Didn’t practice--little or no new material, skills, or techniques will or can be introduced; I promise. Click here for a few thoughts on how to practice on your own at home

·         New goal—A new song, new chords, new technique, new concept, etc. we practice the new goal several times to be sure it is understood before the student leaves. 

MACRO TEACHING - SETTING OBJECTIVES, TYPES OF ASSIGNMENTS

SETTING OBJECTIVES

The first thing a teacher does is create an objective, a statement of purpose for the whole lesson. An objective statement itself should answer what students will be able to do by the end of the lesson. Harry Wong states that, “Each [objective] must begin with a verb that states the action to be taken to show accomplishment. The most important word to use in an assignment is a verb, because verbs state how to demonstrate if accomplishment has taken place or not.” The objective drives the whole lesson, it is the reason the lesson exists. Care is taken when creating the objective for each day’s lesson, as it will determine the activities the students engage in. The teacher also ensures that lesson plan goals are compatible with the developmental level of the students. The teacher ensures as well that their student achievement expectations are reasonable.

SELECTING LESSON PLAN MATERIAL

A lesson plan must correlate with the text book the class uses. The school usually selects the text books or provides teachers with a limited text book choice for a particular unit. The teacher must take great care and select the most appropriate book for the students.

TYPES OF ASSIGNMENTS

The instructor must decide whether class assignments are whole-class, small groups, workshops, independent work, peer learning, or contractual:

• Whole-class—the teacher lectures to the class as a whole and has the class collectively participate in classroom discussions.
• Small groups—students work on assignments in groups of three or four.
• Workshops—students perform various tasks simultaneously. Workshop activities must be tailored to the lesson plan.
• Independent work—students complete assignments individually.
• Peer learning—students work together, face to face, so they can learn from one another.
• Contractual work—teacher and student establish an agreement that the student must perform a certain amount of work by a deadline.

These assignment categories (e.g. peer learning, independent, small groups) can also be used to guide the instructor’s choice of assessment measures that can provide information about student and class comprehension of the material. As discussed by Biggs (1999), there are additional questions an instructor can consider when choosing which type of assignment would provide the most benefit to students. These include:

• What level of learning do the students need to attain before choosing assignments with varying difficulty levels?
• What is the amount of time the instructor wants the students to use to complete the assignment?
• How much time and effort does the instructor have to provide student grading and feedback?
• What is the purpose of the assignment? (e.g. to track student learning; to provide students with time to practice concepts; to practice incidental skills such as group process or independent research)
• How does the assignment fit with the rest of the lesson plan? Does the assignment test content knowledge or does it require application in a new context?

MACRO TEACHING

Macro teaching

Macros are programmes that generate programmes; mention macros to most programmer’s, perhaps even you, and the first image that comes to mind is string substitution- you use a macro to glue together a few parameters in a new way, maybe with a bit of compile-time decision making thrown in. Lisp macros are lisp programmes that generate other lisp programmes. The generated lisp code has a fully –parenthesized notations, as does the macro that generates the code.

LESSON PLAN

A lesson plan is a teacher's detailed description of the course of instruction for one class. A daily lesson plan is developed by a teacher to guide class instruction. Details will vary depending on the preference of the teacher, subject being covered, and the need and/or curiosity of students. There may be requirements mandated by the school system regarding the plan.

Developing a lesson plan

While there are many formats for a lesson plan, most lesson plans contain some or all of these elements, typically in this order:

• Title of the lesson
• Time required to complete the lesson
• List of required materials
• List of objectives, which may be behavioral objectives (what the student can do at lesson completion) or knowledge objectives (what the student knows at lesson completion)
• The set (or lead-in, or bridge-in) that focuses students on the lesson's skills or concepts—these include showing pictures or models, asking leading questions, or reviewing previous lessons
• An instructional component that describes the sequence of events that make up the lesson, including the teacher's instructional input and guided practice the students use to try new skills or work with new ideas
• Independent practice that allows students to extend skills or knowledge on their own
• A summary, where the teacher wraps up the discussion and answers questions
• An evaluation component, a test for mastery of the instructed skills or concepts—such as a set of questions to answer or a set of instructions to follow
• A risk assessment where the lesson's risks and the steps taken to minimize them are documented.
• Analysis component the teacher uses to reflect on the lesson itself —such as what worked, what needs improving
• A continuity component reviews and reflects on content from the previous lesson

A WELL-DEVELOPED LESSON PLAN

A well-developed lesson plan reflects the interests and needs of students. It incorporates best practices for the educational field. The lesson plan correlates with the teacher's philosophy of education, which is what the teacher feels is the purpose of educating the students.

Secondary English program lesson plans, for example, usually center around four topics. They are literary theme, elements of language and composition, literary history, and literary genre. A broad, thematic lesson plan is preferable, because it allows a teacher to create various research, writing, speaking, and reading assignments. It helps an instructor teach different literature genres and incorporate videotapes, films, and television programs. Also, it facilitates teaching literature and English together. Similarly, history lesson plans focus on content (historical accuracy and background information), analytic thinking, scaffolding, and the practicality of lesson structure and meeting of educational goals. School requirements and a teacher's personal tastes, in that order; determine the exact requirements for a lesson plan.

Unit plans follow much the same format as a lesson plan, but cover an entire unit of work, which may span several days or weeks. Modern constructivist teaching styles may not require individual lesson plans. The unit plan may include specific objectives and timelines, but lesson plans can be more fluid as they adapt to student needs and learning styles.

MICRO TEACHING SKILLS - INTEGRATION OF SKILLS

Having armed the teacher trainees with a battery of teaching sub skills, 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 methods 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.

Link practice or integration of skills can be done in two ways;

1.     Integration in parts

                                    3 or 4 teaching skills are integrated and transferred them into a lesson of 15-20 minutes duration. And again 3 or 4 skills are integrated and are transferred all the skills to one lesson.

2.     Integration as a whole

Student teacher integrates all the individual teaching skills by taking them as a whole and prepares a macro lesson then transferred them into a real teaching situation

SET INDUCTION

The lesson begins with a series of hands-on experiments – “make your own magic” – to pique the students’ interest in the subject. The material designated “students’ material” above is distributed to each pair of students, together with “Worksheet 1” which looks like a quiz, but is mostly blank except for spaces to fill in their names and class. The (fake) “quiz” element would help to capture the students’ attention. The students are told to inflate the long balloons and try two experiments: run the balloon over their partners’ hair and note that it can make his/her hair stand. Next, try to stick the rubbed side of the balloon against the wall it will seemingly defying the laws of gravity.

The students will then be told to tear up “Worksheet 1” into small pieces of paper, a guideline for the size of which will be shown on the OHP. This will provide kinaesthetic learners a chance for hands-on activity and greater involvement in their own learning. Students will place their small pieces of paper on the table and rub their provided plastic rulers with the cloth. By bringing the ruler near the pieces of paper, students would observe that the ruler “magically” attracts the pieces of paper to itself, seemingly defying gravity.

At this point, ask the students what kind of forces they know about other than gravity, and introduce the term “static electricity” to begin the topic. Further hooks into the topic can be provided with some real-life static electricity examples, such as thunderstorm clouds and anecdotes of static shock (though the latter is not as applicable in this country).

LESSON CLOSURE

Students will be asked to recall what they have learnt during the lesson before being presented with a brief summary, serving to address the content and process learning outcomes of the lesson. They will be told to complete their worksheets. These worksheets will serve as indicators of successful learning, hence one of the worksheets is a simple concept map of what they have learnt in this class that can be completed and discussed in class to clarify any alternative conceptions.

·         As the topic is only to be concluded in the next lesson (this lesson plan has not covered electric fields and the hazards of static electricity), the students will be shown a picture of a petrol-transporting truck, and will be asked to think about why such trucks usually have a metal chain dangling from the metal body of the truck to the ground.

MICRO TEACHING SKILLS

Teaching skill is a set of related overt behaviours of the teacher (verbal and non-verbal) which are observable, definable, measurable, demonstrable 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.

  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. Foreg. 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.

 SKILL 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.

·        Distinct difference between letters.

·        Adequate spacing between letters.

·        Adequate spacing between words.

·        Slant of letters nearly vertical.

·        All small letters of the same size.

·        All capital letters of the same size.

·        Size of the letters large enough to be read.

·        Thickness of the line uniform.

Neatness in blackboard work.

·        Adequate spacing between lines.

·        Lines parallel to the base of the board.

·        No overwriting.

·        Focussing the relevant matter.

Organisation of blackboard work.

·        Systematic planning of the space.

·        Spacing to exhibit the sequence of the items being presented.

·        Adjustment of the space for presenting related items in totality.

Appropriateness of blackboard work.

·        Continuity in points.

·        Points brief(Brevity).

·        Appropriate presentation of illustrations and diagrams.

·        Proper use of colour chalk.

·        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.

·        Grammmatical correctness

·        Conciseness

·        Relevance

·        Specificity

b)            Process

The process of asking questions involves more than one aspect

  Speed

  Voice

  Pause

  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 in  order 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 strategies 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.