Micro teaching technology

Need of Microteaching Dr. S. S. Verma, Department of Physics, S.L.I.E.T., Longowal, Distt.-Sangrur (Punjab)-148106 With the changing market, social and teaching scenario at the same speed, unemployment among passing outs with any type of qualification is on the rise and is blamed to all other reasons except to the urgent need for a change in the role of a teacher and syllabus all together which can play a great role in making a student competitive according to whatever his qualifications. Student’s changing attitude towards education and lack of infrastructure facilities are generally blamed to produce a line of unemployable school/college/university pass outs. Things are not as bad in developed countries as in India even with lots of resources and human power because we never bothered about the accountability in teaching profession (as we always take it as a noble profession) and need of micro teaching techniques. We are still moving ahead with macro-teaching methods which are not only depriving the students from acquiring the analytical skills but also demotivating them from going for education itself. Teachers use a variety of different approaches when instructing their students. Sometimes teachers lecture their students; at other times they encourage their students to work together to accomplish a goal. Thus, macro and micro teaching come into play, as well, because they help dictate what a teacher teaches, how the teacher provides that instruction and who is included in each classroom activity. The present article discusses the need, benefits, techniques and precautions with micro teaching.

Macro teaching: occurs when a teacher provides instruction to the entire class at one time for an extended period of time. Macro teaching is often done in lecture format, and may be used to introduce a new concept. Another component of macro teaching occurs when a teacher is developing lesson plans. Though, macro teaching allows a teacher to introduce new information to everyone at once but it may have limitations if several students are performing below grade level and aren't yet ready academically to learn the new material. At the same time, macro teaching can give a teacher an idea of what subjects or concepts she needs to spend more time on, as well who in her class needs additional help. Planning lessons at the macro level helps a teacher stay on track so she's able to meet her goals and cover the entire curriculum before the school year ends.

Micro teaching: is one of the recent innovations in the field of educational technology. It offers a new model for improving teaching. It has been found to be an effective modem strategy for modification of classroom behaviour of teachers. There has been a growing concern among educational thinkers for reshaping Teacher Education programmes; so as to make it more effective, meaningful and scientific. In Teacher Education programme, the courses are divided into two parts-theoretical and practice-teaching courses. But, now-a-days, we find that there is no consensus regarding the procedures followed in various aspects of students-teaching and assessment of teacher-behaviour. The teacher-educators are not clear about the specific 1

objectives of training programme. Supervision of practice-teaching is haphazard and mostly unreliable. In many cases, pupil-teachers do not see the exact relationship between the content of the courses and actual teaching in the classroom. There is no organized form of feedback regarding the performance of the teacher in the classroom. Adequate guidance is not given to pupil-teachers in their preparation and practice teaching. Due attention is not paid to various aspects of a practical-lesson, starting from planning to evaluation either by pupil-teachers or by teacher-educators. The suggestions offered by the teacher-educators are mostly subjective and based on general impressions. The defects are not actually pin-pointed. Hence, some other effective technique or approach should be adopted for developing the various teaching skills among teachers. In this context, micro-teaching comes as a remedy to the above problem.

Micro teaching occurs when a teacher works with small groups of students he/she has formed based on their reading ability. Micro lesson planning happens when a teacher creates individual classroom activities that occur on a day-to-day basis. Micro teaching occurs when a teacher works with a small group of students for a short period of time. This usually happens with a group of 5 to 10 students for a period of 5 to 10 minutes. A primary reason why micro teaching has benefits in the classroom is because it allows a teacher to provide in-depth instruction to a few students at a time. This kind of learner-centered micro teaching helps boost understanding.

A drawback is that, depending on how many students are in the class, the teacher might not have enough time to provide small group instruction for all students who need additional attention.

Children who are performing well also may get less of a chance to work in a small group because they don't usually need additional help to grasp a concept.

Micro-teaching implies micro-element that systematically attempts to simplify the complexities of the teaching process. It cannot be mastered in a rigid and general setting. So it is analyzed into well-defined components that can be practiced, taught and evaluated. Teaching constitutes a number of verbal and non-verbal acts. A set of related behaviours or teaching acts, aiming specific objectives are performed with an intention to facilitate pupils’ learning, can be called a teaching skill. The concept underlying micro-teaching, assumes that teaching consists of various skills. Practice-teaching becomes effective only on acquisition of specific skills. All these teaching skills which go to make good teaching can be defined, observed, measured and controlled by means of practice. Micro-teaching concentrates on specific teaching behaviours and provides opportunity for practicing teaching under controlled conditions. So through microteaching, the behaviour of the teacher and pupil is modified and the teaching-learning process is more effective by the skill training.

Characteristic of Microteaching • Microteaching is a highly individualized training device • Microteaching is an experiment in the field of teacher education which has been incorporated in the practice teaching schedule • It is a student teaching skill training technique and not a teaching technique or method • Microteaching is micro in the sense that it scale down the complexities of real teaching • Practicing one skill at a time • Reducing the class size to 5 – 10 pupil • Reducing the duration of lesson to 5 – 10 minutes • Limiting the content to a single concept 2

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Immediate feedback helps in improving, fixing and motivating learning The student are providing immediate feedback in terms of peer group feedback, tape recorded/CCTV Microteaching advocates the choice and practice of one skill at a time

Micro-teaching involves the following steps • Particular skill to be practiced is explained to the teacher trainees in terms of the purpose and components of the skill with suitable examples • The teacher trainer gives the demonstration of the skill in Micro-teaching in simulated conditions to the teacher trainees • The teacher trainee plans a short lesson plan on the basis of the demonstrated skill for his/her practice • The teacher trainee teaches the lesson to a small group of pupils. His lesson is supervised by the supervisor and peers • 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 • 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 • The revised lesson is taught to another comparable group of pupils • The supervisor observes the re-teach lesson and gives re-feed back to the teacher trainee with convincing arguments and reasons • The ‘teach – re-teach’ cycle may be repeated several times till adequate mastery level is achieved Merits of Microteaching • Helps to develop and master important teaching skills • Helps to accomplish specific teacher competencies • Caters the need of individual differences in the teacher training • Is more effective in modifying teacher behaviour • Is an individualized training technique • Employs real teaching situation for developing skills • Reduces the complexity of teaching process as it is a scaled down teaching • 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

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Conclusion: We all know that the economic prosperity and good quality of any nation depends upon the development of human resources of that nation. The significant fact in the development of manpower resource refers to the competencies and the level on which these competencies are imparted and it largely depends on those who develop these competencies. Therefore, for this purpose we need highly competent teachers for imparting these competencies. It is essential that teachers imparting these competencies should have the capability to perform their task efficiently. For this, they need to acquire requisite competencies themselves. Micro-teaching is now accepted as an efficient instrument of teacher training. It provides a controlled setting for making various experiments in teaching methods. It has the advantage of providing selfevaluation of one’s performance. Microteaching, a teacher training technique currently practiced worldwide, provides teachers an opportunity to perk up their teaching skills by improving the various simple tasks called teaching skills. With the proven success among the novice and seniors, microteaching helps to promote real-time teaching experiences.

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