MICRO TEACHING_EDU05.8 ONLINE ASSIGNMENT

 MICRO TEACHING

EDU05.8 ; PEDAGOGIC CONTENT KNOWLEDGE ANALYSIS ; PHYSICAL SCIENCE

ONLINE ASSIGNMENT

INTRODUCTION

     Microteaching is a scaled down but realistic class-room context which offers a helpful setting for a teacher to acquire new teaching skills arid to refine old ones. It does so by reducing the complexity and scope of such classroom components the number of pupils, and length of lesson, by providing trainees with information about their performance immediately after completion of their lesson. It is a teacher training procedure which reduces the teaching situation to simpler and more controlled encounter achieved by limiting the practice teaching to a specific skill and reducing teaching time and class size. A training technique which requires student teachers to teach a single concept using specified teaching skill to a small number of pupils in a short duration time. The most important point in microteaching is that teaching is practiced in terms of definable, observable, measurable and controllable teaching skills. It defined microteaching as a specific teacher training technique through which trainee practices the various teaching skills in a specific situation with the help of feedback with a view to increase the student's involvement. Specific situation means small time to practice (5 - 7 minutes), small number of pupils (5-7) and-small-length of practicing material.

PRINCIPLES OF MICRO-TEACHING

     On the basis of the learning theories, the following principles underlie the concept of microteaching.

1. Capabilities of the learner must consider when a decision of what to teach is made. In pursuance of        this principle, a trainee is given the opportunity to select a lesson content in an area of his greatest          competence so that he may feel at ease with the subject matter.

2. The learner must be motivated intrinsically. In line with this principle, intrinsic motivation in the            context of microteaching is created through cognitive and effective discrepancy between his ideas,          self concept a teacher and his real teaching.

3. Goals are to be realistically set. In keeping with this principle in the microteaching setting, attempt is      made to modify only modifiable behavior which trainee wants to change.

4. Only one element of modifiable behavior is to be worked on at a time. In pursuance of this principle,      in any microteaching session a trainee practices one skill at a time and moves to the next only after        he has achieved mastery over it.

5. Active participation by the student is necessary in order to modify his behavior substantially. In              accordance with this principle, in any micro-teaching situation a trainee engages actively in                    practicing       a skill in which he wants to be perfect.

6. Knowledge and information about one's performance helps the learner. Transfer of learning will be        better if the learner gets the feedback related to his performance. In view of this principle, if any            microteaching session a trainee is provided knowledge and information about his performance by          supervisor with or without the help of videotape or an audio tape.

7. Transfer is maximized due to immediate feedback which informs the trainees of their defective              practices before they become habitual. According to this principle, in microteaching setting a trainee      is provided immediate feedback regarding his performance, thereby eliminating any chance of                wrong  practice.

8. Spaced distributive recalls are advantageous as learning and maintenance of a skill are best                      accomplished through spaced practice over a period of time. In keeping with this principle, in                  microteaching, students are provided experience in various skills over a considerable length of time.

PHASES OF MICRO TEACHING PROCEDURES

According to Cliff and Others (1976), Micro-Teaching procedure has the following three phases:

1. Knowledge Acquisition Phase

     At this stage, the student teacher tries to get knowledge of the skill to be practiced. He reads relevant literature concerning that skill. He is also made to observe a demonstration lesson in which that skill figures prominently. The person who demonstrates the skill is an expert of the subject and the skill. By observing that lesson, the teacher under training gets theoretical as well as practical knowledge of that skill.

2. Transfer Phase

     At this stage, teacher integrates the different skills. Instead of artificial situation he teaches in the real class-room where the number of students full class. His lesson is of 30 to 35 minutes duration and there he tries to integrate all the skills for which he made efforts in Phase Nos. I and II.

3. Skill Acquisition Phase

     The student teacher acquires the skill in hand through a lot of practice. He prepares the micro-lesson, teaches it to have practice and then through feedback evaluates his performance. Then he preplans the lesson with modifications and improvement and then retouches that lesson. Again there is re-feedback in order to enable him to have mastery of the teaching skill. In this way, different skills are learnt by the  student teacher one by one.

STEPS OF MICRO-TEACHING

A Micro-Teaching programme is organized to expose the trainees to an organized curriculum of miniature teaching encounters, moving from the less complex to the more complex. At each step along the way, a teaching strategy is discussed until it can be incorporated into a short teaching lesson of approximately 5 minutes duration. The trainee then teaches this lesson with a small group of four to six pupils in front of a video camera, a supervisor, and often some trainee peers. The pupils are sent out after filling a short rating font, and the video recording is replayed and criticized by the supervisor and trainee peers. Then the trainee is given time to think about this criticism and to make modifications in his teaching strategy.

Micro-Teaching process includes the following steps:

Orientation

     In this step teacher provides orientation i.e., lectures on Micro-Teaching, its process, aspects, merits and limitations, to the pupil-teachers.

Discussion of Teaching Skill

     Under this step the pupil-teachers should be introduced with various teaching skills. Teacher discusses and explains the psychological rationale behind a particular skill under use.

Presentation of Micro-Teaching Model

     The teacher educator gives a model Micro-Teaching (5 to 10 minutes) for the particular skill. His model-exemplifies the use of the particular skill and its components.

Observation Schedule

     The pupil-teachers should be provided the Observation Schedule for the observation of the specific skill. Each skill has different observation schedule. The observation and criticism of the model lesson provide feedback to the demonstrator.

Preparation of Micro-lesson-Plan

     Under this step pupil- teachers are required to prepare micro-lesson-plan related to the specifically selected teaching skill. The pupil-teacher should preferably select one unit concept for micro-lesson.

Teaching Session

     The teacher teaches a group of four or five pupils. The teacher educator or a peer can observe the micro lesson by the trainee and note down the observations in a specially developed preformed. The micro lesson may be videotaped or at least recorded using cassette recorder.

IMPORTANCE OF MICROTEACHING

     The importance of microteaching has been discussed under the following heads

1. It is a safe practice

     Practice is essential for many learning activities. Practice is the normal class-room whether by a student teacher or by experienced teacher brings with it certain constraints. It is felt that students are to be skillfully taught, not practiced on. Practice may take place within a larger block of time. It must be integrated into the flow of longer lesson. Most important factor taking in our classroom teaching is the limited opportunity for the student teacher to receive feedback for his performance.

2. A focused instrument

     Teaching is a complex activity. It can be analyzed into component skills or behaviors. The microteaching environment enables a student teacher to focus attention on and practice on specific skill at a time until he acquires competence in it. Provision of feedback accelerates this process. After acquiring competence in a number of skills in this way, the student teacher takes to microteaching.

3. A vehicle for continuous training

     Microteaching is a useful vehicle for providing continuous training to serving teachers. Most of the teachers who reach their professional plateau do not want to improve their skill of teaching. This is also true of the teachers who enjoy high reputation for their skill of teaching. The main reason for such a tendency is that they do not find a way to experiment with new skills of teaching and thereby improve upon them. Microteaching helps in overcoming such lacuna. It provides setting for experimentation. Again with the introduction of new curriculum, teachers are required to acquire new skills of teaching. .Microteaching helps them in acquiring such skills.

4. Modeling instructional skills

     The microteaching setting demonstrations of good teaching given by teachers can be recorded on videotape or observed by supervisor. Such a recording or observation analyzed to identify component skills comprising teaching which is a complex activity. Similarly, sub-behaviors underlying each skill can also be identified. This knowledge so obtained helps in building models of various component teaching skills. These models are presented before the trainees so that they may make their behaviors according to the models of the skills by practicing in the microteaching setting.

5. A new approach to supervision

     The approach to supervision under microteaching is non-evaluative. In the microteaching setting a supervisor acts as a guide or an adviser. He helps the trainee teacher or the practicing teacher to improve his skill of teaching. Before the commencement of practice, both the teacher and supervisor are clear about the objective to be achieved or skill to be demonstrated. They are also clear about the mode and instrument of assessment to be used. Such a procedure provides common frame of reference for the supervisor and the trainee for a dialogue. The suggestions given by the supervisor are incorporated in the new lesson or re- teach practice.

6. A new research too

     There are many variables which may affect the teaching-learning process. Such variables are the size of class, quality of the student, the length of the period, the motivation of the students etc. Microteaching helps the researcher to exercise control over such variables and thereby enables him to see the effect of independent variables over the dependent variables. Microteaching is also suitable for pilot studies. Before embarking on large experiments same problem can be worked out in micro-teaching setting.

MERITS OF MICRO TEACHING

     Micro-Teaching is an innovation which has sound basis of principles of learning and application of technology. The advantages of Micro-Teaching are as follows:-

1. It is an effective feedback device for the modification of teacher's behaviour.

2. It is highly individualized type to teacher training.

3. It is useful for developing teaching efficiency in pre-service and in-service teacher training                      program.

4. It helps in systematic and objective observation by providing specific observation

    schedule.

5. It helps in acquiring various types of skills which ultimately form the basis of successful teaching.

6. It reduces the complexities of normal classroom teaching such as size of class, time and problem of        discipline.

7. It is a training device for improving teaching practice and to prepare effective teachers.

8. Teaching is a complicated type of activity. Micro-Teaching simplifies it so as to make it suitable for         the beginner teachers.

9. It develops the feeling of confidence among the teachers.

10. It provides economy in mastering the teaching skills. The use of video-tape enables the trainee to            analys his own teaching performance.

11. It can be done either in real class-room conditions or simulated conditions.

12. It focuses on training for the accomplishment of special tasks such as practice of instructional                  skills,  mastery of certain curricular materials and practice of techniques of teaching.

13. It permits increased control and regulates teaching practice.

14. It enables the trainee to make progress developing teaching skills at his own rating depending upon         ability.

15. Trainees get satisfaction when they hear and see themselves through audio-video-tapes.

DEFECTS OF MICRO-TEACHING

     The drawbacks of Micro-Teaching are as follows;

1. Through Micro-Teaching one trainee is trained at a time.

2. It is more time consuming as a trainee will take 35 minutes to practice one skill only.

3. It presents fragmented view of teaching.

4. It may enable a trainee to seek mastery overthe isolated teaching skills but hardly trains him to meet      the needs of the real teaching encounter.

5. The immediate feedback which is a must may not be feasible in all conditions.

6. Due to short lesson of 6 minutes, a trainee cannot get training in evaluation, diagnostic and remedial      skills.

7. It cannot fit in Indian conditions and situations due to its short practice period which may create              academic and administrative problems in the schools.

8. It depresses the creativity of teachers. During teaching a teacher evolves something new but he has        to  stop as the micro lesson ends.

9. Micro-Teaching can be carried on successfully only in controlled environment but generally it is            found class-room situations are flexible.

10. It wastes a lot of time of students. Each micro lesson goes on for 5 to 10 minutes where the main           emphasis is on teaching technique, learning by students is almost ignored.

11. Micro-Teaching alone may not be sufficient. There is need of integrating it with other teaching                techniques.