The skill of teaching is more than just passing on information from one person to another. Instead, it is a multi-step procedure that aids and impacts the learning process. A teacher’s effectiveness is determined by how well their pupils comprehend what they are teaching. Classrooms cannot be utilised as a learning environment to acquire fundamental teaching abilities. This blog aims to underline the need to employ micro-teaching methods more frequently and effectively with the bare minimum of resources and to highlight the advantages of micro-teaching.
Concept of Micro-Teaching
Micro-teaching is a concept in teacher education that allows teachers to self evaluate their performance and receive feedback on their abilities and progress as a teacher. It is a teacher training approach for developing teaching skills. It uses real-world teaching situations to help improve abilities and get a greater understanding of the art of teaching.
Objectives of Micro-Teaching
● Enabling teacher candidates to grasp a variety of teaching techniques
● Providing a controlled environment for prospective teachers to develop and adopt new teaching techniques
● Helping teacher candidates build confidence in the classroom
Advantages of Micro-Teaching
Microteaching can be done with a single concept and a small group of students in a very small class. It simplifies the difficulties of real-world teaching by allowing for quick feedback after each practice session. A few advantages of micro-teaching are listed below:
Experimentation
Teachers can use micro-teaching as a chance to try out new teaching approaches and ideas. Experimentation can aid in discovering new teaching approaches that are more successful than the ones they are currently using.
Boosts Confidence
A lot of practice can help you gain confidence and improve your teaching abilities. By progressively raising the level of difficulty, microteaching fosters confidence. Instructors can test new material or concepts in a low-risk environment; on introducing a new topic, it can assist in reducing fear and boosting confidence.
More Learning and Less Damage
The micro-teaching method is limited to 3-4 students at a time. Consequently, you will be able to have more teaching experience. It also reduces the likelihood of errors.
Immediate Feedbacks
The greatest approach to improvement is to get immediate feedback. Micro-teaching allows teachers to receive immediate feedback from supervisors. Instant feedback allows users additional opportunities to correct errors.
Cost-Effective
Unlike other expensive programmes and seminars, the micro-teaching programme is cost-effective. Teachers can practise in the classroom or at any other location.
Encourages Systematic Lesson Planning
Lesson planning is an essential skill to be acquired by teachers. Within a specific curriculum, a micro-teaching programme assists the trainee in developing organised lesson plans.
Practice Elasticity
Micro-teaching assists in developing several skills in both trainees and current teaching personnel. Developing talents need practice. While micro-teaching focuses on one ability at a time, it also allows students to practise those abilities.
Positive Attitude
Having a good attitude helps you achieve better results. As a result, one of the goals of this programme is to help trainees develop a positive attitude toward criticism. Consequently, giving negative criticism in a good way motivates trainees to strive for improvement.
Mastery of Skills
This curriculum assists in the mastery of many micro-teaching skills and methods such as lecturing, questioning, probing, and initiating dialogues. It also aids in the development of a unique teaching style.
Importance of Micro-Teaching
Every teacher would agree that micro-teaching is critical to their professional growth since it helps them enhance their knowledge, abilities, and professional attitudes.
Micro-teaching is a real-life teaching environment where the number of pupils and time is reduced to a manageable size. This is not the same as simulation teaching. In micro-teaching, students are peers who take on the role of students. Peers will provide comments on the teacher’s performance following the teaching procedure.
In order to address their deficiencies in teaching performance, the teacher can obtain feedback from their supervisor, peers, or video recordings. The insight might be helpful in their future classroom instruction.
Micro-teaching helps the teacher concentrate on learning teaching abilities by limiting the number of standards of competence used. As a result, it assists the teacher in reducing the complexities of teaching in a regular classroom.
How Can Micro-Teaching Help You Become a Better Teacher?
Teachers can obtain rapid feedback on their teaching skills and style through micro-teaching. It entails imparting a brief lesson or piece of information to a group of peers, coworkers, or pupils. The subject of micro-teaching can be anything – it could be targeted to your target audience or a subject you’re passionate about – but whatever you choose to teach, it should be something you’re comfortable delivering. Here are a few tips that can help you become a better teacher.
Planning: Planning your micro-teach using your existing lesson-planning abilities can make it easier to establish the purpose, resources needed, and, ultimately, the effectiveness of the session.
Plan Interaction: We’re all more accustomed to being in front of a camera than ever before, but whether you’re delivering your micro-teach “live” or recording it for your own or others’ assessment, it’s critical to incorporate the prospect of involvement into your lesson.
Maintain Control: It is critical to maintain your audience’s interest. You’ll have to walk the fine line between theatrics and lecturing.
Take Note of the Time: With such a limited time constraint, ensure that you highlight the most significant and intriguing aspects to attract your audience. Allow time for questions or a synopsis if you are recording.
Conclusion
Micro-teaching may be extremely beneficial to teachers’ professional and personal development. They will be able to develop the abilities and attitudes required to become teachers. Teachers’ teaching methods will improve as a result of this training, resulting in a more effective learning experience for students.
Whether you utilise micro-teaching as part of your official teacher training or as a means to monitor and enhance your teaching style as an already-qualified teacher, leveraging an online learning app to learn and practice micro-teaching would really prove to be beneficial.
