The Advantages of Microteaching

The Benefit of Micro Teaching Learning Microteaching manifests itself in this chapter as: *a reduced situation; *a training and practice situation; *a simulated situation. In this sense, the advantages that microteaching has over other traditional teacher training programs are obvious. These advantages are summarized as follows: (a) Microteaching is a training opportunity and the students can profit from all of the advantages of the situation. (b) Microteaching provides the student with a much less complex learning milieu than, e.g., school practice. (c) It offers the student the opportunity to more easily and purposefully practice teaching skills during the presentation of micro-lessons. (d) It provides the student with a context in which his primary responsibility is to learn to teach more effectively without the urgency of taking into account the needs and demands of pupils. (e) It offers the student the opportunity to systematically analyze and evaluate his teaching. (f) It offers the student the opportunity to practice particular teaching skills until they are mastered before the more complex real teaching situation is dared. (g) The systematic practice of teaching skills creates the possibility of forming a bridge between theory and practice. (h) Implementing interaction-analysis instruments offers the opportunity to objectively analyze particular activities and makes the student sensitive to part-activities that the skill manifests. 129 (i) The fact that the micro-lesson takes a short time gives the student the opportunity to better identify the elements of the learning contents and then further design his micro-lesson around them. (j) The student himself, or under the guidance of a teacher educator, can easily correct problems or errors that arise because the variables he has to take into account are limited (a-j: Calitz, 1981: 46). (k) It gives each student the opportunity to contribute meaningfully to the improvement of his fellow students and at the same time it puts a great deal of responsibility on his shoulders. (l) To present a micro-lesson to fellow students in the same subject area gives him the opportunity to present his micro-lesson on any grade level. (m) It provides the opportunity to students to put themselves, as far as possible, in the position of the pupils with whom they must try to deal. (n) The student who presents the micro-lesson is challenged to communicate with his "pupils" about the content on an appropriate learning level even though he presents his micro-lesson to fellow students. The greatest value of microteaching is the changes it brings about in students regarding their teaching. The greatest changes brought about by microteaching are: *a greater grasp of teaching as a complex, challenging profession; *a greater interest in and enthusiasm for teaching; *an increased self-confidence; *a greater concern for improving and evaluating his own teaching. (Turney, et al, 1973: 8).

Teaching Terms and Their Meanings

1. Reflective Teaching:- Reflective teaching is a process where teachers think over their teaching practices, analyzing how something was taught and how the practice might be improved or changed for better learning outcomes
Explanation:- Reflective teaching is a process where teachers think over their teaching practices, analyzing how something was taught and how the practice might be improved or changed for better learning outcomes. Some points of consideration in the reflection process might be what is currently being done, why it's being done and how well students are learning. You can use reflection as way to simply learn more about your own practice, improve a certain practice (small groups and cooperative learning, for example) or to focus on a problem students are having. Let's discuss some methods of reflective teaching now.

2. The Proliferation of Teacher Training Institutions:- Rapid increase in the number or amount of those institutions where teachers can be trained.

3. Situated Cognition:- Situated cognition is a theory that posits that knowing is inseparable from doing by arguing that all knowledge is situated in activity bound to social, cultural and physical contexts.

4. Pedagogy:- the function or work of a teacher; teaching. 2. the art or science of teaching; education; instructional methods.

5. Peripheral: - (of a device) able to be attached to and used with a computer, though not an integral part of it.

6. Hands-on Method of Teaching:- Hands-on learning is an educational method that directly involves the learner, by actively encouraging them to do something in order to learn about it. In short, it is 'learning by doing'. But is it an effective way to learn, or simply a fad? This article outlines some of the main advantages and disadvantages of hands-on learning.

7. Microteaching:- Microteaching is organized practice teaching. The goal is to give instructors confidence, support, and feedback by letting them try out among friends and colleagues a short slice of what they plan to do with their students.

8. Teacher Education Programmes:- 1. Pre-primary teacher education 2. Primary teacher education 3. Secondary teacher education 4. Higher education programmes 5. Vocational Teachers Training

9. Homogeneous:- of the same kind; alike.

10. Behavior:- A stereotyped motor response to an internal or external stimulus.

11. Character:- An individual's set of emotional, cognitive, and behavioral patterns learned and accumulated over time.

12. Cognition:- The act or process of knowing or perceiving.

13. Cognitive:- The ability (or lack of) to think, learn, and memorize.

14. Gene:- A building block of inheritance, which contains the instructions for the production of a particular protein, and is made up of a molecular sequence found on a section of DNA. Each gene is found on a precise location on a chromosome.

15. Identity:- The condition of being the same with, or possessing, a character that is well described, asserted, or defined.

16. Maturity:- A state of full development or completed growth.

17. Personality:- The organized pattern of behaviors and attitudes that makes a human being distinctive. Personality is formed by the ongoing interaction of temperament, character, and environment.

18. Socialization:- The process by which new members of a social group are integrated in the group. 

19. Temperament:- A person's natural disposition or inborn combination of mental and emotional traits.

20. Gestalt Theory:- Gestalt is a psychology term which means "unified whole". It refers to theories of visual perception developed by German psychologists in the 1920s. These theories attempt to describe how people tend to organize visual elements into groups or unified wholes when certain principles are applied.

21. HyperCard:- HyperCard is an application program and programming tool for Apple Macintosh and Apple IIGS computers, that is among the first successful hypermedia systems before the World Wide Web.

22. Epistemology:- the theory of knowledge, especially with regard to its methods, validity, and scope, and the distinction between justified belief and opinion.

23. Baha'i:- a monotheistic religion founded in the 19th century as a development of Babism, emphasizing the essential oneness of humankind and of all religions and seeking world peace. The Baha'i faith was founded by the Persian Baha'ullah (1817–92) and his son Abdul Baha (1844–1921).

24. Motor Skill:- A motor skill is simply an action that involves your baby using his muscles. Gross motor skills are larger movements your baby makes with his arms, legs, feet, or his entire body. So crawling, running, and jumping are gross motor skills. Fine motor skills are smaller actions.

25. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT GROWTH DEVELOPMENT:- The term is used in purely physical sense. It generally refers to increase in size, length.
Changes in the quantitative aspects come into the domain of Growth.

26. Maturation:- Maturation is the process by which we change, grow, and develop throughout life. Developmental psychologists look at many different types of maturation throughout the lifespan. The types of maturation that we will focus on in this lesson are physical maturation and cognitive maturation.

27. Gestalt Psychology:- Gestalt psychology is a school of thought that believes all objects and scenes can be observed in their simplest forms. Sometimes referred to as the 'Law of Simplicity,' the theory proposes that the whole of an object or scene is more important than its individual parts.

28. Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a theory in psychology proposed by Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper "A Theory of Human Motivation" in Psychological Review. Maslow subsequently extended the idea to include his observations of humans' innate curiosity.

Conscientiousness is the personality trait of being thorough, careful, or vigilant. Conscientiousness implies a desire to do a task well. Conscientious people are efficient and organized as opposed to easy-going and disorderly.

Neuroticism is a fundamental personality trait in the study of psychology characterized by anxiety, fear, moodiness, worry, envy, frustration, jealousy, and loneliness.
Educational research refers to a variety of methods, in which individuals evaluate different aspects of education including: “student learning, teaching methods, teacher training, and classroom dynamics”.