THE PRACTICE OF MICROTEACHING AS A TRAINING TECHNIQUE IN TEACHER EDUCATION
THE PRACTICE OF MICROTEACHING AS A TRAINING TECHNIQUE IN TEACHER EDUCATIONAbstract
The success of any educational process depends on the quality, commitment and expertise of the teacher. Many believe that teacher are born and some believe that teachers are made. Any way the services of good teacher
s are essential for improvement of the society. The classroom transaction by teacher is quite essential and this can be improved by practice. There are various ways of improving the classroom transaction. Microteaching is also an important method for enhancing the teaching capacities. The classroom complexities are reduced in this technique and simulated conditions are provided for practice. The reduction in class size, teaching content, teaching skills and content is a boon to neo-teacher trainee. The observations and suggestions of peers are helpful in effective learning of skills. The research studies suggest that this technique helps in better teacher training. However, it is also known that the teacher trainees are not giving their best in the classro
om. Hence, this made the investigators to study the use of microteaching in the teacher trainees. Besides discussing the microteaching technique the investigators also discuss their research findings in the context of northern part of Karnataka. An attempt is also made to give schematic presentation of the microteaching. The authors are pleased to inform that the teachers are made, through the microteaching.
Key words: Microteaching, Teacher Education
Introduction
"Education is the development of all those capacities in the individual which will enable him to control his environment and fulfill his responsibilities".
John Dewey
Education is the most important invention of mankind. It is more important than his invention of tools, machines, space crafts, medicine, and weapons and even of language, because language too was the product of his education. Man without education would still be living just like an animal. It is education, which transformed man from a mere "two-legged animal” into human. Education of man does not begin at school, it begins at birth. It ends not when he graduates from the University but at his death. Hence, education is a life long process.
Only education is not eno
ugh for the growth and development of the individuals the practical use of education in their life is a must and this can be done by technology. Technology may be defined as the "systematic application of scientific or other organized knowledge to practical tasks" (Galbraith, 1967) and at various times in the history of education, technology has been introduced in the hope that it would enhance teaching and learning. Most significant is perhaps the 'blackboard' which persists today and might be around for many decades! More than three decades ago, Davies (1978) identified three major conceptions of educational technology. Educational Technology One (ET1) emphasizes the use of machines, equipment and other aids in instruction. It is in essence a hardware approach to education. "Technology is seen as a means of mechanizing or automating the process of teaching with devices that transmit, amplify, distribute, record and reproduce stimuli materials, and thus increase the teacher's impact as well as wid
en the potential audience"
Educational Technology is the application of scientific principles to education. It lays stress on the development of methods and techniques for effective teaching-learning. It stresses the organisation of learning situations for the effective realisation of the goals of education. It emphasises the designing and measuring instruments for testing learning outcomes. It facilitates learning by controlling environment media and methods. It involves, input, output and process of education. Educational Technology refers to the development of a set of systematic methods, practical knowledge for designing, operating and testing in schools (B. C. Mathis).
One more important te
rm which play very significant role in education is teaching. Teaching is the process of imparting education from more educated person to less educated person. Teaching is a highly skilled job and therefore requires adequate training. Every teacher must have a clear understanding of his task its meaning and intricacies involved. It is a system of actions intended to induce learning. NL Gage defines teaching as an inter-personal influence aimed at changing the behaviour potential of another person i.e. not only the teacher influences the student also the reverse happens. Thus, teaching is a bipolar process, of its one pole is teacher and another is student.
The more crucial job in teaching and learning process is training the teachers. The task of preparing teachers who can impart the necessary competencies to the students under their stewardship refers to the area of Teacher Education. It is considered to be the weaker link in educational system. The National Commission on Teacher and Central Ministry of Education in its document 'Challenge of Education- A policy perspective' have pointed out these deficiencies and laid stress on revitalisation and modernisation of teacher education programmes.
The goals of education with the aim of taking the nation into 21st Century cannot be achieved unless teachers have the necessary skills and competencies. The skills and competencies can be developed though systematic approach to revitalise and modernise teacher education and there are many new tactics that have has come in educational technology like microteaching, simulated teaching, programme instruction etc. Among these microteaching is the old technique started in about 16th century. Earlier only theoretically it was discussed in the teacher education institutions but now it is implemented practically.
Microteaching is a scaled-down, simulated teaching encounter designed for the training of both pre-service and in-service teachers. Its purpose is to provide teachers with the opportunity for the safe practice of an enlarged cluster of teaching skills while learning how to develop simple, single-concept lessons in any teaching subject. Microteaching helps teachers improve both content and methods of teaching and develop specific teaching skills such as questioning, the use of examples and simple artefacts to make lessons more interesting, effective reinforcement techniques, and introducing and closing lessons effectively. Immediate, focused feedback and encouragement, combined with the opportunity to practice the suggested improvements in the same training session, are the foundations of microteaching protocols.
Microteaching is organized practice teaching. The goal is to give instructors confidence, support and feedback by letting them tryout among friends and colleagues a short slice of what they plan to do with their students. Ideally, microteaching sessions take place before the first day of class, and are videotaped for review individually with an experienced teaching consultant. Microteaching is a quick, efficient, proven and fun way to help teachers got off to a strong start.
A microteaching is an opportunity to present a sample "snapshot" of what / how you teach and to get some feedback from colleagues about how it was received. It is a chance to try teaching strategies that you may not use regularly.
This is a good, safe time to experiment with something new to you to get feedback on a technique you have been trying but are not sure about its effectiveness.
The dictionary meaning of microteaching is teacher training using videotape that is a training exercise used in teacher training in which a student or student teacher is videotaped during part of a class for subsequent analysis and evaluation.
A microteaching is an 8-10 minuets lesson in which you will put into practice the elements of effective teaching. At registration you will be assigned to a small group of eight to ten other student-teachers. You will work with this group during portions of the orientation and will do your microteaching with them. Each group will be led by a faculty member of peer. You will present your lessons with your group members serving as students. The presentations will be videotaped. You will then view and critique your own videotape using the principles learned in the Orientation. Your private replay and self-analysis will be followed by a one-on-one conference with your group leader. The conference will help you identify strengths in your presentation and provide suggestions for the areas you would like to improve.
Microteaching is a training technique which is called 'micro' since a teacher trainee practices with a small group of 5 to 10 pupils for a short duration of 5 to 20 minutes on a selected concept of a lesson and concentrates on a single skills which is magnified.
Teaching skills for student teachers focus on participant observation skills, model teaching discipline techniques and content teaching. Microteaching is not a substitute but a supplement to the teacher education programme.
Microteaching is 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 of time. The most important point in microteaching is that teaching is practiced in terms definable, observable, measurable and controllable teaching skills.
Basically microteaching is a "scaled down teaching encounter in which a student teacher teaches a small unit to a group of five to 10 students for five to ten minutes or we can say micro teaching is a training procedure aimed at simplifying the complexities of the regular teaching process. In a microteaching procedure the trainee is engaged in a scaled-down teaching situation. It is scaled-down in duration of class time and is reduced to five-ten minutes. It is also scaled down in terms of teaching tasks. These tasks may include; the practicing and mastering of a specific teaching skill such as lecturing, questioning or leading a discussion.
Microteaching helps in producing skilled teachers. Microteaching has the potential to produce more thoughtful, critical and skilled teacher (Comford, 1990). By using educational theories we can make use of microteaching in teacher education that is for each microteaching performance by integrating current theories of teaching into the analytic frame work that underscores the goals and the cognitive underscores of the microteaching performance (Karthigeyan, 2006). The success of microteaching depends on the feedback step due to which the practicing skill get improved and further developed. The subsequent feedback becomes a dialogue between student, peers, teacher fellows and tutors that provides different refractions of this practice and contribute to the development of pre-critical, internalised and hypothetical thresholds. (John, Susan, Gary, 2003). The video tape recording as a source of feedback in microteaching plays a significant role in knowing the strengths and weakness in the performed skill. Videotape recording was an effective method of feedback in microteaching and student-teachers will show more significant progress in the mastering of teaching skills (Edward, 2001). Microteaching is a vehicle for development and training in Teacher Education (Andrew, 1987). Microteaching is a scaled down teaching encounter in class size and class time (Allen, D.W. 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 (Allen and Eve 1968). Microteaching is a "scaled down teaching encounter in class size and class time". (Munn, 1966)
In our traditional mode of teachers training a great dependence is observed on the availability of the pupils, classrooms and co-operation from the staff on the practicing schools. The microteaching approach incorporating simulating technique helps a training institution in overcoming the hardships faced on the task of organising student teaching for learning the art of teaching. The Global concept of teaching is replaced by the analytical concept in microteaching approach. Here, the complex task of teaching is looked upon as a set of simpler skills comprising specific classroom behaviours. This helps in the proper understanding of the meaning and concept of the term teaching. Microteaching helps in reducing the complexities of the normal classroom teaching. It is a scaled down or miniature class room teaching as it reduces the size of the class and duration of the lesson and provides proper opportunities for practicing one component teaching skill at a time by using single concept of the content. In microteaching the student-teacher concentrate on practising a specific and well defined teaching skill consisting of a set of teacher behaviours that are observable, controllable and practicable. Consequently microteaching provides more appropriate technique of learning the art of teaching then the traditional student teaching programme. Microteaching helps in systematic and objective observation by providing specific observation schedule. Microteaching works as a laboratory exercise to focus training on the acquisition of teaching skills and instructional techniques. Here a trainee can experiment with several alternatives in a limited time and resources. It is just like to learn the art of operating human body parts in a medical laboratory by a student doctor before actually operating a patient. Microteaching provides economy in mastering the teaching skills. It saves the time and energy of the student-teacher as well as of the pupils. In microteaching it is not only easy for a student teacher to handle a micro-group (5-10 pupils) but also safe because they will have less problems of classroom discipline and subsequent mental tension as faced commonly in the traditional practice teaching programme. It also saves the pupils for being unnecessarily used as guinea pigs for training student teachers. Another major advantage of microteaching lies in the provision of immediate, systematic, pin-pointed and objective feedback in behavioural terms. In the traditional teaching practice programme it is usually given in global terms like 'improve hand writing', 'seek pupil's participation' etc, after the lapse of a lot of time. Microteaching caters to the need of individual differences in the training of teachers. Here, an individual trainee may work for the development of teaching skills at his own rate depending on his teaching abilities. Unlike traditional practice teaching programme it focuses attention on the modification of teacher behaviour and improvement of interaction process involved in the teaching-learning process.
The concept of microteaching is further being cleared in the following two paragraphs.
Micro teaching is defined as scaled down teaching learning encounter in terms of students, contents, skill and time. In this context following design explains the microteaching process,
time | | | | | | | | | students | | | | | | | | | | time and students | | | | | | |
| | | | | | + | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |||
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |||
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |||
| content | | | | | skills | | | | | content and skills | ||||||||||||||
Figure showing the scaled down representation of various factors |
The actual classroom session is 40-45 minutes, where in 4-5 teaching points are covered. Similarly, the classroom has about 40 students who are taught with the use of multiple skills. An arrangement is made in the micro teaching that the trainee teachers teach in a scaled down manner by reducing all these aspects. The time is reduced to 6 minutes, content is reduced to one teaching point, 5-10 students (generally the peers) are taught by taking an skill at a time. There is overall reduction in complexity of teaching practice. Thus, in this overall time taken for preparing such a micro lesson also gets reduced. There is no observation in the classroom engaged by a teacher, where as teaching is observed by the peers and supervisors for a trainee teacher in microteaching. There is no multimedia used for recording a general class, where as the training process in the microteaching class is recorded by audio, video media for self analysis or feedback. The classroom is intended for transmission of predetermined knowledge from the teacher to the taught, where as the microteaching class is used for practicing teaching, learning from peers, observation, commenting, criticism. The lessons once delivered in the general classroom can not be reverted back, whereas the microteaching class has scope for replanning and reteaching. The above figure only compares the reduction in various aspects of teaching.
Fig. showing that the microteaching is a small part of the whole teaching process
Following paragraphs further elaborates the reduction in different factors. The academic components of school which are involved in the classroom transaction are varied. Few important factors which affect practice of teaching are the time, skills, students and content. The larger circles depicted in the figure above indicate these factors in totality. The students spend larger amount of time in the school and the classroom teaching is only a small part of the entire day. The school has many students, who learn in different classes and the students present in the class are only a small part of this entire group. Each of the class being taught under a specified curriculum, which has different subjects containing different units. A teacher covers only part of content in a specified period. The teacher use different types of skills such as interpersonal, communication, soft skills and teaching skills in his/her conversation in the school. The teacher uses only teaching skills in the classroom. Thus, the classroom teaching itself is subset of different factor. Even at this stage, the sub group is also larger component which can not be handled by novice teacher. Hence, these components are further scaled down and a virtual experience is provided to the trainees. This type of training is called microteaching.
The importance of microteaching is known from the ongoing discussion. However, a study has to be done to know the actual implementation of this technique at gross root level. Therefore, the investigators have done a study on microteaching. The objectives of the study were to know the impact of microteaching on student teacher, to study the use of microteaching in different colleges of Education in Karnataka State and to study the perception of microteaching by teacher educators. The investigators have prepared and supplied questionnaire and opinionnaire to the student teachers and teacher educators respectively. The questionnaire is made up of 36 different items which are divided in 12 sections of 3 items each. The investigators distributed 10 questionnaires to each of the college of education taken as sample. These questionnaires were accompanied by the request letter of the investigator with detailed instructions about responding to the questionnaire. Further, a self-addressed stamped envelop was also placed for ensuring feedback from the concerned college. The filled in tools by the sample were posted to the investigators address. The findings of the study are given below:
Table showing the responses of student teachers
Areas of Microteaching | Responses in Percentages | |
Yes | No | |
Awareness of Meaning of Microteaching | 100.00 | 0 |
Awareness of definition of Microteaching | 95.48 | 4.52 |
Awareness of the objectives and purposes of the Microteaching | 96.61 | 3.39 |
Awareness of component, planning stage, cycle of microteaching | 90.96 | 9.04 |
Knowledge of the stages of Microteaching cycle | 85.31 | 14.69 |
Use of Microteaching in the Classroom | 96.05 | 3.95 |
Different types of Microteaching skills and their practice | 92.90 | 7.10 |
Microteaching cycle waste much time | 33.00 | 67.00 |
Difficulty in preparing micro lesson plan | 54.24 | 45.76 |
Availability of guidance in micro lesson plan | 73.45 | 26.55 |
Verification of micro lesson plans by teacher educators | 98.31 | 1.69 |
Orientation of microteaching | 94.35 | 5.65 |
Observation of peer lessons | 96.00 | 4.00 |
Sufficiency of Planning time | 90.00 | 10.00 |
Awareness of Importance of feedback | 100.00 | 0.00 |
Awareness of Advantage of Feedback | 96.60 | 3.40 |
Audio visual feedback is superior to oral only | 55.73 | 44.27 |
Need of Demonstration | 97.74 | 2.26 |
Sufficiency of Demonstrations | 93.79 | 6.21 |
The findings of the study are given here. All of the student teachers know the meaning of microteaching. 95.48% know the definition of Microteaching, 96.61% know the objectives and purpose of the Microteaching. 90.96% know the component, planning stage, cycle of microteaching but 85.31% know the stages of Microteaching cycle. 96.05% student teachers said that microteaching help them in class room teaching and really improves their teaching skill and classroom interaction. 92.9% of the student teachers know different types of Microteaching skills and they practice at least six skills. 33% of them told Microteaching cycle waste much time. 54.24% student teacher feel difficulty in preparing micro lesson plan, 73.45% get guidance for preparing micro lesson plans, but 98.31% student teacher said that their teacher educators verify their micro lesson plan. About 94.35% teacher educators orienting the microteaching program, presenting the model microteaching lessons and explaining the different skill of microteaching. Almost 96% student teachers know how to observe, they do observation to their peer group. About 90% of the student teacher get sufficient planning time and know different components which come under planning. Almost 100% know the importance of feedback in microteaching and 96.6% said feedback is helpful in improving the skills but 55.73% accepted that Audio visual feedback is superior to oral feedback. 97.74 % said about demonstration is essential and 93.79% are getting sufficient demonstration.
Use of microteaching has made the student teachers aware of the meaning, purpose, objectives component of microteaching. They prepare their micro lesson plan, practice microteaching skills, which are most essential and positive habits before entering in the classroom. This has helped them in the observation of others lessons, giving of feedback and in turn acceptance of similar response from others, which help in learning of teaching. This methodology of teaching has increased interaction among teacher educators and student teachers; initially the former demonstrates lessons and the latter observers, whereas the reverse cycle takes place in the later part in which teacher educators also gives the feedback. This small cohesive interactive group helps in development of perfect skills. There is negligible number of respondents who agree that microteaching is time consuming, waste of time, laborious or boring, which means that all most all the respondent agree with the importance of training before going to the actual classroom. It encourages the person to take up teaching, enhances power of observation, power of toleration and learns from the observations of others. It enhances use of audio-video material. The teaching is not only broken into different skills and its components but, the student-teachers learn to integrate various components, skills and practices it, which is essential for a general classroom.
Teacher educators feel that microteaching improves teaching competency, student teachers learn by observation, oral and audio-visual feedback of peers and supervisors. Teacher educators find their student motivated, learning skills together and appreciating feedback. This has made students practice teaching, before actually going to practice i.e. at least 6 skills are practiced before entering the classroom. This mode of training has increased confidence level in student teachers, which in turn has positive impact on student in the classrooms. This has helped in preparation of teachers who have positive impact on learners.
Hence, from above findings it can be concluded that there is a positive impact of microteaching on the student teachers of secondary level teacher training institute of Karnataka State.
The above analysis indicates that microteaching is used in maximum number that is in almost all the teacher training institutions. Teacher educators as well as student teachers are actively participating in microteaching program. This shows the positive impact of microteaching on the student teachers in Karnataka state. Now it has to be accepted that “Teacher can be made”. These findings and analysis strengthens our belief that “Teacher can be made” and microteaching has important role to play in this.
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