The Microteaching Experience: Student Perspectives

Abstract

Over the past several decades, various activities and strategies have been implemented into Teacher Education methods courses in an attempt to increase the effectiveness of the courses, as well as the education programs overall. While some may have come and gone, incorporating microteaching experiences into pre-service teacher education programs is still alive and strong in the 21st Century. As Allen and Ryan (1969:1) stated, microteaching is training concept that can be applied at various pre-service and in-service stages in the professional development of teachers. It provides teachers with opportunities to practice in an instructional setting in which the normal complexities of the classroom are limited and in which they can receive feedback on their performances. As universities continued the implementation, a number of studies were conducted that provided evidence that microteaching is an effective means of improving pre-service teachers' teaching skills (Borg, Kallenbach, Morris, & Friebel, 1969: Davis & Smoot, 1970: McDonald & Allen, 1967; Morse & Davis, 1970; Yeany, 1978). Today, the concept of microteaching appears to be alive and well. Various components to the experience have been altered or added, such as the videotaping of and alternative forms of feedback for the teacher, but the general philosophy still remains. A more modern definition can be taken from Cruickshank and Metcalf (1993:87), who stated that microteaching is a scaled-down teaching encounter in which pre-service teachers demonstrate their ability to perform one of several desirable teacher abilities to a group of 3-5 peers during a short time period. An example might be for a student to prepare and a brief lesson to their peers in order to demonstrate the ability to present clear instruction. Once the lesson is completed, feedback is provided by way of a videotape analysis of the lesson or from peer/instructor comments, with evaluation focused on how well the student demonstrated the desired skill. It is this model of microteaching, which includes the added components of videotaping and peer evaluation, that Millikin University recently selected to implement into several of its pre-service teacher education courses in an attempt to increase the effectiveness of the teacher education program. One of these courses is General Secondary Methods, which is composed primarily of sophomore education students from many disciplines. The course's main objective is to provide students with the opportunity to explore the field of teaching and gain knowledge and skills that will increase their effectiveness as future educators. It was decided that incorporating a microteaching experience would be beneficial and would assist in meeting this goal. The microteaching component of the General Secondary Methods course lasts a month. Once students have been introduced to effective teaching skills, the students are divided into small groups of 6-8 students and asked to prepare ten minute lessons that focus on three specific teaching skills: establishing set, presenting clear instruction, and using questions effectively. Each student utilizes his/her individual discipline knowledge to select topics, prepare lessons, and then teach the to peers in a mock-teaching setting. Feedback is provided after each lesson through peer evaluations. In addition, the are videotaped, and each student is expected to complete a self-evaluation after watching his/her taped lesson. Three sections of General Secondary Methods students at Millikin University participated in this study. Fifty-three secondary education students, spanning the disciplines of English, Social Science, Science, Physical Education, Art, and Math, completed the microteaching component of the course, teaching a series of three ten-minute lessons. At the end of the microteaching component of the course, the students evaluated the experience. …

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