Microteaching

       1. Introduction

Why microteaching?

Medical teachers most often do not receive a special training in pedagogic techniques, as it is usually not considered necessary for their recruitment or for an efficient continued performance. Their ability to teach therefore largely depends on self training, either by trial and error while teaching or by observation of colleagues, who may or may not be helpful examples.

Getting in front of students is a trying experience for a budding teacher. One may earnestly try to prepare him or herself: read books about teaching methods, attend lectures and take courses on didactics. Yet, in theory everything seems much simpler than in practice. The complexity of a teaching situation can be overwhelming. To deal effectively with it, teachers must not only have a good knowledge of the subject in hand, but also some communication skills such as ability to observe, supervise, lead a discussion and pose questions. Furthermore, a teacher should be aware of how students perceive him or her. This perception is sometimes quite different from the teacher's self-image. It is difficult to self assess one’s own abilities and we benefit from colleagues’ feed back to recognize our strength and identify areas for possible improvement.

Evaluation of teaching by students is becoming a common practice, and a constructive feedback could be an effective way to improve one's rating as a teacher. Even the experienced educators may sometimes reflect about strengths and weaknesses of their teaching style.

What is microteaching?

Microteaching is an excellent way to build up skills and confidence, to experience a range of lecturing/tutoring styles and to learn and practice giving constructive feedback. Microteaching gives instructors an opportunity to safely put themselves “under the microscope” of a small group audience, but also to observe and comment on other people's performances.

History of micro teaching

The history of microteaching goes back to the early and mid 1960's, when Dwight Allen and his colleagues from the Stanford University developed a training program aimed to improve verbal and nonverbal aspects of teacher's speech and general performance. The Stanford model consisted of a three-step (teach, review and reflect, re-teach) approach using actual students as an authentic audience. The model was first applied to teaching science, but later it was introduced to language teaching. A very similar model called Instructional Skills Workshop (ISW) was developed in Canada during the early 1970's as a training support program for college and institute faculty. Both models were designed to enhance teaching and promote open collegial discussion about teaching performance.

advantages.

1.It focuses on sharpening and developing specific teaching skills and eliminating errors.

2. It enables understanding of behaviors important in classroom teaching.

3. It increases the confidence of the learner teacher.

4.It is a vehicle of continuous training applicable at all stages not only to teachers at the beginning of their career but also for more senior teachers.

5.It enables projection of model instructional skills.

6. It provides expert supervision and a constructive feed back .

7. It provides for repeated practice without adverse consequences to the teacher or his students

8. It has skilled supervision

9. It gives constructive feed back

10. It has the component skills approach

DISADVANTAGES OF Micro teaching

1. It is a passive process of learning by imitation.
2. Time Consuming .
3. There is always the possibility of a bad role models.